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Not sure what happened to the last few weeks, but here I am, back again. I've been watching lots of football, grading lots of papers, and trying not to blow over in the wind.

At the suggestion of my Californian-born husband, we packed up the kids in the car and drove into the mountains to see the snow. It was a beautiful, sunny day with lots of puddles and little ice. Despite the warnings about "chain conditions exist," we stayed at a low enough altitude that driving wasn't a problem. At a small car-camping turnoff, we pulled over and broke out the fleece layers for the kids. L is too little to want to hit people with snowballs (probably a good thing), so we were content to kick the snow with our feet, draw silly pictures with a stick (Harold Bloom style), and make a lump of snow we called a snowman. Oh yeah, lots and lots of staged photos. We weren't the only snow-tourists. I saw a woman with the shiniest, most fashionable orange snowboots I've ever seen, another in a full body fur coat, and kids with brand new scarves wrapped around their necks. One of the boys spotted a lone icicle on the fender of a car and managed to get all the other kids to crowd around him in awe while he oh-so-carefully broke it off at the stem.

I wonder if lowlander Southern Californians appreciate snow more than those of us who've seen it out our windows when we woke up. . . . Nah.