And how was your Valentine’s Day?
Mine began yesterday at 5:08am, when Butterfly awoke howling. I hopped out of bed, grabbed her, brought her downstairs, fed her a nice big cup of prune juice (yeah… it’s that kind of problem), and then let her fall back asleep on me for half an hour before the rest of the clan made their way downstairs. Meanwhile, I watched the news, my eye carefully following the crawl of school closings scrolling their way along the bottom of the screen — noting the towns in my area that did or didn’t close, waiting for the list to loop its way around to my end of the alphabet, watching the mounting snow/ice/sleet outside. As of 6:10am, our town was still unlisted. As we were scheduled to have a meeting with TheHurricane’s (town) preschool at 8:15am, we took that as a sign that we needed to get the show on the road.
So: I went out and shoveled. At the time, there was probably only about 3 inches of snow on the ground, so the snowblower wasn’t really justified. 40 minutes later, driveway relatively clean and cars cleared, I made my way indoors… and was told that the town had decided to cancel school.
Great. So while I peeled off my sweaty clothes and hopped in the shower, TheWife called the twins’ daycare center (aka TheHurricane’s “Other School”) and determined that they were still open, and could accomodate an extra little monster. Wunderbar. So when I returned downstairs in my festive, new red LL Bean fleece shirt (a birthday gift from TheInLaws) and opened my arms to wish my beloved a Happy Valentine’s Day… she pushed a twin into my arms and said, “I’m working from home today. Start loading up.”
So I loaded my car full of as many children as I could find, and headed out into the storm. Thanks to the magic of all-wheel drive, I arrived successfully, tossed the kids out of the car, and began the long, slow crawl to work. Seven miles and some 35 minutes later, I arrived. Phew! Let the commerce begin!
After some five hours of productive paperpushing, sarcastic asides and foosball breaks (yes, that’s right — I said foosball) I received a call from the daycare place: we’re closing early. Come get yer young’uns.
Here’s where I note that during the intervening five hours, we continued to get snow/ice/sleet… so when I pulled out of our building, I had to bust through a foot-high wall of plowed slush to get onto the street. So. I made my way out to daycare, only to discover that every other parent had received the same call I did (duh)… and subsequently, I had to park about a four minute walk from the center. I walked through the freezing rain/sleet to the center, grabbed TheHurricane, and carried him four minutes back out to the car. I installed him, left the motor running (to help him warm up, as by the time we got back to the car we were both soaking wet), then walked four minutes back to the center. I grabbed a twin, and – with the other one screaming and crying as I left her behind – made another four-minute walk back to the car. I installed her, headed back into the storm, and some eight minutes of walking through freezing rain/sleet later… I had the clan all set and ready to go.
We made the slow, slippery drive back to our home, and while I was shivering uncontrollably from the gallons of frigid moisure that saturated my clothes, hair and skin, I felt good in knowing that at least TheWife was waiting for us at home, and would welcome us with warmth and good cheer.
The next challenge: we live on a busy street, meaning that I could expect that end of my driveway would be plowed in with well over a foot of filthy slush and ice. And – hooray! – it was. Adopting the battering ram style of driving, I took a wiiiiide right turn… slammed through, skidded all over what was probably parts of my driveway, parts of my lawn and parts of my neighbor’s lawn, and pulled to a stop.
I hopped out, grabbed a kid, and began sloshing through the thick, heavy mess toward our welcoming back door… only to discover that TheWife hadn’t quite gotten around to clearing off the back stairs. Hooray! Just what I was hoping to find, with a squirming 35-lb three-year old in one hand and several bags filled with lunches, clothes, etc. in the other.
Anyhow. I made my way in, and then repeated the process twice more with the other offspring. Then I changed my jacket (and put on a good pair of boots — note to self: don’t wear sneakers again during a winter storm), went outside, and busted out the snowblower.
Goddamn, I love my snowblower.
An hour later – and covered in a layer of snow, ice and slush, but with a clear driveway, front walk, back walk and conscience – I returned to my home, ready to be welcomed by the open arms and hearts of my loving, grateful family.
“I’m making salmon for dinner,” TheWife said.
“Um… but, you know I hate fish.” I replied.
“It’s good for you, and I want you to like it.” She clarified.
So. I changed some diapers, ran upstairs and took another shower, and came down to a dinner of salmon (aka slimon) and green beans. The kids screamed all the way through dinner. The salmon – even TheWife admitted this – tasted “extra fishy.” I actually started to feel nauseous as a result. Then somebody’s prune juice kicked in… and suddenly, we needed to hose people down and throw them into a bathtub. More screaming ensued. Then the shampooing process. More screaming. Then the towel rubdown and PJ installation. More screaming. Then we went downstairs, and eventually calmed them to the point where I gently sang them through our copy of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star… and I was two pages away from the end, and everyone was mellow and happy, and for a moment I wasn’t burping up slimon, and twin eyes were starting to get heavy and tired… and the phone RANG AND RANG AND RANG and “hello! this is a telemarketer!” and then there was more screaming.
Finally, I got the girls to bed. And then I took up TheHurricane, and waited patiently for twenty minutes for him to fall asleep because, as everyone knows, Hurricanes don’t like to go to bed alone. And I came downstairs, exhausted, ready to flop down on the couch with my sweetie and watch whatever wonders the Gods of Netflix might provide… when she said, “I’m going to watch Lost.” Because this was a 2-hour rerun/new show combo, and I’d actually seen the rerun last week when it originally aired, I told her that I was going to go upstairs and avail myself of our whirlpool tub instead. After a long day in cold, awful weather (followed by a plateful of stinky slimon), nothing feels better than a good boil in the whirlpool tub. Goddamn, I love my whirlpool tub.
“I just started the dishwasher,” she said. “No hot water.”
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Following up on Curt Schilling’s surprise announcement that he’d probably be leaving the Sox after the 2007 season – as Dan Shaughnessy details here in typically even-handed fashion – Pats RB Corey Dillon also announced his intention to retire (probably). Which shouldn’t been completely stunning, considering that as a guy who makes his living by running Dillon doesn’t actually move much better than Schilling (see photo and join me in basking in the glory of the Schilling physique)… but still, I don’t think it was news any of us were anticipating.
