Whaaa?! Was that New England Weather? -or- The Iceman Cometh
Two days ago it was just so fantastically cold outside, it was all my ancient farmhouse furnace could do to keep the temperature indoors up to 64 degrees. Yesterday morning, little Jessica announced to me that she wanted to go play outside.
"What are you going to do?" I asked, envisioning her with crinkly frosted cheeks and brittle icicle fingers.
"Just play in the snow" she replied
I agreed and told her to bundle up in her snow pants. I really didn't expect her to be out there more than ten minutes.
When a half-hour rolled by and she was still outside, I was surprised and glanced out the back door to see that she was busily shoveling the morning's light snow off the back step and patio.
Still another fifteen minutes went by, and finally I heard the back door open and close.
"Hang your snowpants in the back hall!" I yelled out to her knowing that failure on my part to provide direction would result in a soggy heap of clothes just inside the door.
"Daddy!" She yelled back, "I need your help!"
"With what?" I queried
"I need your help outside..."
Now she had my interest, so I put down my newspaper and walked around to the mudroom where she was standing, still fully decked out in her outdoor gear.
"I'm making a snowman but the second ball is too heavy and I can't lift it... you gotta help me put it up."
"How can you build a snowman?" I asked incredulously, "it's about two degrees out there and the snow is all powder."
"Nuh-uhhhh... look" she points out to the back yard. Sure enough, there are two good sized snowballs out there each about a foot and a-half in diameter. So I bundled myself up in hat and coat and scarf and gloves and headed out the back door with her... into balmy forty-something degree sea air.
We finished the snowman, right down to his chestnut buttons, charcoal eyes, and old metal gas-can hat. We had such fun we decided to give him a snowdog companion. They were both very handsome standing watch out in the back yard and the snowman looked sharp with his bright red gas can cap.
That afternoon, when the other girls started arriving for Jessica's birthday party, she was very proud of her creation and made sure to point out the snow pair to each of them as they came into the house. By the end of the party however, something had gone terribly wrong! The snowman had aged incredibly in just a matter of hours. He was hunched over in apparent pain as his eyes, nose, and most of his chestnut buttons had fallen out into the snow. His once proud gas-can cap lay upended at his feet, and his faithful canine companion had lost its head.
Sadly we returned the gas can to the shed and cleaned up the rest of the body parts that were lying around in the snow.
This morning, I looked out back expecting to see nothing but a disheveled lump of snow. Had I ventured out to start my car though, I would have realized that as hunched over and grizzled as he had become, he was now most solidly the iceman. The two-degree weather of two days ago had returned overnight with a vengeance. |
