Monday, March 2, 2009

Snow Day!



Ah, snow in Washington. Everything comes to a complete stop. It started snowing yesterday afternoon, but began in earnest after dinner. By this morning, there was a good 5 inches or so on the ground. School's closed, of course. Mr. T is even working from home today.

The boys got up early, of course, and had a lot of the shoveling done before 9 am. Then it was off to make forts and try to have a snowball fight.

Later, they walked down to the library/quasi-school around the corner because it has the good sledding hill. Now, the quasi-school is under construction, so most of the area is fenced off, but there's still decent sledding, they said, as long as you stop before the fence.

Now they're home, pink-cheeked and begging for hot chocolate. These are the best times to be a kid!

My brother is here for the weekend. He was showing clips of his coal documentary downtown last night, and today is filming protests near the capitol. Brrr. Now, my brother will be 40 in three weeks, but he's very much an overgrown adolescent. The man has never managed to internalize the concept of "call if you're going to be late," so we've spent much of our time this weekend sitting around and waiting for him to show up from various places.

He didn't get home from his panel last night until 1 am, and I, like a nervous mother, couldn't sleep until I heard the little alarm chimes that let me know he'd come into the house.

We had an interesting little experience with Sr. Jr. last night, too. Before my brother got home, SJ walked into our room whispering about something. We finally got him to speak up, and he said something about "taking off the wood." ??? Guess he was just sleepwalking and wanted to tell us something. I wonder what his dream was about?

Snow + freeloading relatives = no knitting, however. I wish I could show you something, but it'll have to wait.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is lovely outside, isn't it? While Sam has been in and out in the snow all morning, even Jacob went out and frolicked a bit, risking his oh-so-cool teen 'tude.

I'm interested in your brother's documentary. When I was in high school my family moved from the Jersey shore to Bristol, VA, a huge coal mining area. The heyday of big coal was over by then (at least for the underground miners) and the area was really hurting economically. It's never really recovered.

W&L pool, oddly enough, was open for mid-day swim, so after shoveling for an hour, it was off to the pool. I wish I could work from home every day of the week!

kippi said...

Heaven's to Pete! You really did get a lot of snow. Sounds and looks like the boys are having a great time.

I have an older brother like that. One year we had a family reunion in VA and he got there from Florida via Northern Alabama. You know, just for fun. Yes, we were all waiting for him and his crew.

Enjoy having all of your boys home today.

btw, do you not have garages there? why are the cars parked on the street?

Anonymous said...

Kippi:

Since I live so close, I think I can say that garages are a luxury in Arlington. We have one, but my between my husband's vintage MGB and the six bikes we have in there, neither of our "working" cars have ever seen the inside.

Loren T said...

Sharon, I'm glad that Jacob got to go out and enjoy, even with the boot. I've only ever seen pieces of the documentary, including the part that was filmed here in the house, so I don't have an overarching sense of what it's about, other than that coal is dirty; there's no such thing as clean coal. I think there's quite a bit about the whole "let's blow off the top of a mountain to get coal" technique.

Yes, no garages. When we did the addition on our house, we added unfinished basement with walk-out French doors, so all the bikes live down there. Mr. T wouldn't even consider leaving the bikes in a garage -- not safe enough for him.

If/when we trade in this house for a newer model, it will have to have a garage.

Scott T. said...

1. I don't appreciate being called a freeloading relative; next time I'll go to work

2. peoples' bikes get stolen out of garages in Arlington (for example Joe Metro).