The snow is incoming. It's already all around us, dusted solid white across the mountaintops, fading to a powdered-sugar sprinkle to the treelines below, and stretching all across the country, names on a map obscured by flakes as big as pennies, heavy with the almost-rain we've been having up until now, a reprieve that we'll soon wish for when everything is made so much more difficult by snow. When we'll have to find warmer boots and matching gloves, when hat-hair becomes a thing, and icy beards thaw, dripping down onto crisp dry shirts. When the furnace runs near constantly and the cats appear after dark as if by magic, looking to curl up against warm sleeping bodies.
Though, as PJ points out almost every single morning? The days are getting longer, even if only by minutes at a time. I'll take that but I will fight the snow with every resource I have. Which would be, at this moment my sheer hatred of the stuff, a Jeep and lots and lots of fire.
Lochlan laughs. Just let it go. We'll manage just fine.
Where does it absolutely never snow? That's still Canada?
Oh, uh, still in the country? Maybe Victoria?
Alright can we move?
You don't want to live there.
I know, I just hate this shit.
It'll be gone in a week or two.
Right. Wake me when it's done.
Bridget, you used to love it.
That was the old Bridget. The new one isn't nearly so flexible.
Honestly the old one wasn't so much either. We'll get through it like we always do and you will see.
I look at him for a long moment, studying his face. He's right. I know he's right and I trust him and I'm never sure why every molehill is a mountain in my mind and every molehill just another hill to climb for him and he's tired and we're getting old and maybe old dogs don't new tricks and maybe this is the way it is, snow and all.
Lochlan, I love you.
He looks surprised. I know you do. I wish you'd focus on that more though, and less on everything else.
That will be my resolution for the New Year.
I have to wait until then?
Though, as PJ points out almost every single morning? The days are getting longer, even if only by minutes at a time. I'll take that but I will fight the snow with every resource I have. Which would be, at this moment my sheer hatred of the stuff, a Jeep and lots and lots of fire.
Lochlan laughs. Just let it go. We'll manage just fine.
Where does it absolutely never snow? That's still Canada?
Oh, uh, still in the country? Maybe Victoria?
Alright can we move?
You don't want to live there.
I know, I just hate this shit.
It'll be gone in a week or two.
Right. Wake me when it's done.
Bridget, you used to love it.
That was the old Bridget. The new one isn't nearly so flexible.
Honestly the old one wasn't so much either. We'll get through it like we always do and you will see.
I look at him for a long moment, studying his face. He's right. I know he's right and I trust him and I'm never sure why every molehill is a mountain in my mind and every molehill just another hill to climb for him and he's tired and we're getting old and maybe old dogs don't new tricks and maybe this is the way it is, snow and all.
Lochlan, I love you.
He looks surprised. I know you do. I wish you'd focus on that more though, and less on everything else.
That will be my resolution for the New Year.
I have to wait until then?