A touch of nostalgia

For the first time all winter the forecasters were right, we are getting a snow storm of some consequence. It started yesterday morning. Here is a photo from yesterday late morning.







It snowed all day, mostly not very heavy but very steady. TGF was released early from work yesterday which was kind of nice to have a full evening together unexpectedly. Some photos from last night.


All those spots in the photos?
Snow falling.








Since she also had today off, I took the boy out for his morning bathroom break which was a full on romp because he adores the snow. You would think he had been raised in the stuff what with his whining to go out because there is snow, making doggie snow angels, and burrowing his snout in the stuff. This morning several more inches that had fallen and I shoveled the front and back steps as well a bit of the sidewalk. I also discovered that we had moved from a blizzard warning (early afternoon yesterday) to a Level 2 Snow Emergency (as of sometime later yesterday)

A bit later I was taking a shower and thinking it would be lovely day to see Jeriann and Cody except the roads suck. Somehow from there my mind drifted to snow days like this in Massachusetts. When Michele and Mike lived across the street and it was day like this they could cross the street or call my ex and I to come over for pancakes. Snow days and pancakes became our ritual in the winters they lived there. A pang of homesickness, nostalgia, and a wistfulness to somehow recreate something like that overtook me. It is rather amazing that tears didn't start flowing.

Since I left Massachusetts Michele and my friendship deteriorated most horribly. Various things conspired to make it all much worse. In the end I decided to stop reaching out to her and have had no contact with her for over two years. I have missed her terribly since I left the east coast, I missed her more when it became untenable to continue to try to maintain a friendship. She was my housemate for about 3 years, lived across the street from me after that for another 2 years. I was present at all three of her children's births. We were like sisters but also more. She was very angry that I was left, that was part of the break, maybe a large part.

Earlier this week I finally dragged my butt to the post office to check the mail since I also had to put that scarf in the mail. It had been so long that I had to go back to the counter to collect my mail because the box couldn't hold it all. In between the junk mail, bills from credit cards that I haven't informed of my home address was a hand addressed envelope. The return address and handwriting were instantly familiar. She had written and wanted to try to rekindle our friendship, she missed me. I was caught so off guard that the only reaction I had was to laugh, rather hysterically, all the way home. In the end I emailed her, explained the lag time in responding (it was postmarked almost a month earlier). The next morning I had a response from her. I wrote a longer post answering some questions, like what the hell was I doing in Ohio (the envelope had the Casa de Cedar address). I haven't heard back from her and truthfully long to hear her voice so may give in and call. I am cautiously excited that I may be able to build a new road with her, to have my friend back in my life. But the snow and pancake days are clearly over.

Almost the same shot about 24 hours later.