Winter arrives (a few days early)

 After several weeks of unseasonably lovely weather (sunny, in the low sixties), winter decided to come visit, with a vengeance. It has been promising to do so, according to all the weatherpeople out there, but it just kept putting it off for so long, I figured it had given up. Not so.

I woke up this morning to gusty winds and blowing snow, and maybe an inch of accumulation. Nothing unusual for Colorado, really. I dressed for school, ate some breakfast, and headed out the door. When I arrived at work, however (after a drive that was slippery but only two minutes longer than usual), it was to find the parking lot un-shoveled and nearly empty of cars. Hmm, I thought, everyone is running late. Not so. The custodians, who were putting up their feet in the main office, told me that school had been cancelled and laughed at me for not checking the news. It honestly had never occurred to me that this was a possibility. Denver last cancelled school four years ago, during the “Blizzard of 2003”, which dumped three feet of snow on the city overnight, and then I think once twenty-five years earlier. ‘Is our new superintendent a wuss?’ I thought. Maybe he’s just not originally from the Dakotas.

In any case, I picked up our class pet, Spike the guinea pig, just in case classes are cancelled tomorrow too. Winter break starts Friday, and I would be a Bad Teacher if I let Spike be stranded in the school without food or water for the whole two weeks. Once home, I gave Spike a couple of carrots and went happily back to bed, which was still nice and warm and inhabited by my husband. Mmmmm.

It’s now two-thirty and there is a little over a foot on the ground, more in some places because of all the gusting winds. I guess the superintendent was right. It would have been a real pain to cancel school in the middle of the day and send all the kids home! In any case, I have thoroughly enjoyed my unexpected holiday – we lit a fire, made French toast, read on the couch, and are planning to watch a movie after lunch. Extravagance. Of course, we’ve shoveled the walk twice, too. We’re not complete hedonists.