But I DO Have Places To Go.

It is not even Halloween, but this morning, we woke up to this:

I can tell that my children are getting older, because it used to be that the first snow of the year was a cause for joyous celebration and wild excitement. This morning, the scene outside the living room window was met with groans and abject disappointment. (Thing 1 was groaning because she has to walk 20 minutes to school, and snow means that she can't wear her bitchin' shoes, and Thing 2 was disappointed because snow means that her Trick or Treating plans to cover 18 square miles will be thwarted, because she knows her mother will not stay out in the cold.)

The drive to work was an adventure, to say the least. Since it usually takes me about 15 minutes to get to work, I leave at 20 to 9 in the mornings. And since I also know that the first snowfall means that most drivers have to learn how to operate a motor vehicle all over again, and the drive in will be slow, I gave myself double the time to get downtown. Still not enough. I called work after being on the road for a half an hour to say that I could still see my street in the rear view mirror.

There are plenty of trees that have not lost their leaves yet, and that, combined with the heavy, wet snow, meant that there were branches down all over the place. It was sort of like being in a video game, driving on some streets. Here is the tree carnage in our backyard:

We lost the weathervane on top of the shed, but you will notice that the fence to keep the rabbits out of the garden is intact, thank goodness. (That last bit, it should be noted, was deeply sarcastic.)

Here is our front porch this morning. You would be forgiven for thinking that we keep giant clams as decoration on our front porch, but those are actually chrysanthemums.

Tomorrow, the forecast is for a high of 8°C, and 14°C for Friday, Halloween. I don't care how much snow has fallen or melted, or what the temperature is, we are not covering 18 square miles.