Have a good stahm or Why New England is not for the weak - Weston, MA

My view out the patio door 7 am

This past Sunday I learned about Winter Storm Juno. As those who remember their mythology, Juno is the Roman name for the Greek goddess Hera. Hera was always my least favorite goddess--she's married to her brother Zeus (err, what?) and he is a pain in the butt always turning girlfriends into swans so she won't smite them because somehow she was always smiting the girl and not her trampy husband. Yes, trampy. Anyway, apparently Hera (Juno) eyeballed eastern Massachusetts and said "wench! you must die for looking at my husband-brother!!" 

Juno was the perfect storm. Please don't ask me to try to remember everything the weather dudes said but it was something about warm wet air coming from the south hitting Canadian winds (blame Canada when it doubt) and doing some kind of samba, or maybe it was cool air from New York (second choice on blame) hitting warm air from Canada--wait, what warm air from Canada? See how easy it is to blame Canada?  

Whatever. All the factors were together for a storm that would drop 24-37 inches on Boston and its metro west suburbs. Think about it, 37 inches!! That's the size of a four year old child...just swallowed up in the 20 hours of the storm. Fortunately my kids are around four feet tall so I could see them above the neck. Mostly screaming with laughter.

Anyway, check out this Weather Channel photo of the storm obliterating New England. Where is Boston? I dunno, but the satellite equivalent of a finger over the lens is up there too. What is that? The wing? Check out the link below the photo for cool other swirly stuff photos.

Photo credit: http://www.weather.com/storms/winter/news/winter-storm-juno-weather-images

Now, if you remember my last blog, I am all about embracing winter. So when BH left me to face Snowmaggedon or Snowcapalype by myself (he got out of town on Sunday night), I thought okay...let's do it! I had a snowplower guy named Joe, who was all set up to have a good "stahm" as all the plow guys  kept wishing each other in their Boston accents "have a good stahm, Georgie..." and I am all fit from my Kung Fu Fit and ready for battle. 

Having lived in Miami for six years, I am a pretty good pro on the getting ready for a weather emergency. Here, in no particular order, is how I went about it on Monday:

1. Firewood. BH brought a bunch in for me and a good thing too. All supermarkets were sold out on Monday. Fortunately I had had to cut down two ash trees in the fall (well, unfortunately for them, but they would have crashed my house during the winds). Of course my puppy ate about two of the largest logs while I was out shoveling on Tuesday, but I was still ready for power out as I now had chips to start the fire.

2. Emergency power. First I identified all neighbors with generators and brought them cookies. No, just kidding on the cookies--I can't bake. I do have three neighbors with generators and all are incredibly nice about saying "come on over" in case of lost power. We did not lose power for even a second, fortunately, in spite of some pretty nice wind gusts and snowy pine trees wanting to drop onto the power lines. Nice work, NStar. The only bad show on NStar is they are about to change their name to "Eversource." I am about to obliterate their marketing agency on my other website. Wait for it. What would you rather be? A star or a source? Weird. I digress.

3. Emergency light. Three flashlights, check! Went to REI to return a ski helmet and bought an emergency lantern that plugs into USB and also charges your electronics. And possibly bakes cookies. I never had to figure that part out. As an aside, the line at REI was HUGE--bigger than all supermarkets. Number one purchase of those in line: gloves. Number 2: snow shoes. Number 3: cool lighting like mine. I wanted the snow shoes but I'm waiting for post season and used ones. I am cheap.

4. Food. We have tons of food and none would go bad like in Miami. As in, oops, you lost your power, stick the milk in the snow drift. Of course, when the snow was coming down three inches an hour like at the height of the storm, you'd find the milk in maybe April. But in spite of tons of food, I could not resist the urge to go buy Campbell's chicken noodle soup (almost sold out) and beer. And shelf-stable milk. What can I say? I didnt' want to find the milk in April. I found the Lincoln supermarket to be pretty not panicked...no lines.

5. Water. I found myself filling bathtubs with water like I did in Miami until one of my neighbors said to me "if you need to, just melt the snow." (I think she might have added "idiot-brain" but I chose not to hear it). We have a gas stovetop so power outage would not stop the cooking...also see fireplace (I have four of those) above. I drained the bathtubs again but left the five pitchers of water around. Old habits die hard.

6. Electronics. I charged everything. EVERYTHING. A DVD player we haven't used in 10 years so we could watch Toy Story or whatever. Ipads, Ipods, Imacs, Iphones, Samsungs...you name it, it was plugged in. They're still plugged in. 

7. Fill'er up. Yes, I filled up both cars with gas. There is no chance I am taking out the hooptie (my 2003 train station car with 112K miles) in snow but like I said, I am trained from Miami days. I could always siphon off the gas for the generator I don't have which would run the oxygenator for the carp pond which I also don't have. Yes, that was my neighbors in Miami in 2005. I am clearly traumatized by a hurricane named Wilma (Flintstones vs. Greek mythology--which would you rather?) It was a scene at the gas stations--lines in both places, all polite, all filled with snowplow guys wishing each other "a good stahm".

And so the snow started at around 2 pm on Monday--the kids activities got canceled (not sure why, this was just flurries) and we bunkered in. Here is how things looked at 7 pm on Monday. Why yes, my bunker does have white wine and a Harry Potter book. Doesn't yours?

At 3 am, I woke up to the noise of the town snowplow. I looked outside and could not believe the huge blanket of snow already down. I checked the house and everything looked okay so I headed back to bed where the kids had somehow noted the empty warm spot and moved in. Sneaky suckers. 

At 7 am, I woke up to a patio backdoor that looked like the first photo. Yep, that looks scary. Very scary. Not all of that was snowfall--the winds tend to blow everything there but it is the door the dogs go out to do their stuff. Now what? I looked out the kitchen door--drifted up to 1 1/2 feet of snow. Garage doors: forget it. Office door: nope. Front door: aha! Only about eight inches near the door, none of it looking like it was going to fall in.

Once the kids woke up, we ate up, geared up and then Lalo and I hit the front walkway. Nico suited up but then turned back: Brazilian boy. We decided to shovel out to the street so my old labrador could get out to do her stuff. All around us was the sweet sound of snowblowers. I hate the sound of snowblowers but I do get their usage in this much snow--I am still sore today from all the snow shoveling. Joe the snowplow dude showed up with his massive Ford pickup truck with the yellow blinky siren on top and made a giant hill in about 10 minutes and then pulled up, rolled down the window and said "just doing a first run...back latah" (or however you do that Bahston accent).

Height of the storm: 8 am and Lalo is kicking it! 1/3 of way to curb...

An hour into the front walkway, Lalo gave up and started tunneling into the hills left by the plow. I suggested that the next plow to pass might bury him forever, so he went over to our own garage hill and tunneled there. Me, I shoveled. And shoveled and shoveled. I cleared the garage door, the path to the kitchen door and the front walkway every hour and a half. Three inches every hour, folks. I think it was a total of 24 inches in our area, which means I was out there about six times (the nighttime accumulation I did only once).

Garage snowplow hill in front of unused garage (thank God)

New England is not for the weak. Even snowblowing ain't easy, kids. Those machines are big. Fortunately I have great neighbors, one of whom came over around 11 am and said "let's sled!" and we all trooped up the dead-end street with the hill and sledded down the road. The middle of the road. And screamed with laughter as we bowled each other over. And jumped out of the way of snow plows. And dogs. Oh, the dogs. Later we let the dogs romp in the two feet of snow, and it is just like all the youtube videos show...bounding up and down with little hills of snow on their snouts. Really good fun.

Come here, Tennessee doggie! Let's romp!

After clearing up some more in the afternoon and watching too much TV and half-heartedly doing homework, we again headed over to the neighbor's for dinner. And wine. And story-telling. And sledding (for the kids). Then we walked home through the enormous mountains of snow and went to bed. 

So, Juno, you may be one pissed off lady but I'm no swan.
Still embracing it...though the arms are just a tiny bit sore...

Embracing winter - Carrabassett Valley, Maine

My two kids sandwiching one of their friends

So it's my first winter in New England in 24 years. That's insane. But true. We've enjoyed sledding and skating and making snow angels, right here in our own backyard. Then our friend-neighbors--can I go with "Friebors" or does that imply Star Wars characters? --invited us up to ski with them at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine. We jumped on the chance, even though Sugarloaf lies roughly four hours north of us and there are plenty of other mountains closer. After all, we had a four-day weekend to play with--one day of Martin Luther King Jr holiday and one of teacher planning.  I also invited along a friend from Wellesley days who now lives in Freeport with her kids. I have a handy reference of the cast of characters at the bottom of this blog.

We had typically New England weather. When we went up on Friday afternoon, there were "snow squalls". As an aside, I just love New England weather euphemisms. What I know as "hail", they call "ice pellets." And you know how I feel about "nor-easters" as that was in a prior blog. At one point, on the worst day of skiing, I asked the guest services person what the conditions were like and she said they were "tricky to difficult." That is a euphemism for there are only 3 lifts open and 11 trails and they are all covered with sheer ice or slush or both. Or you could also call it "spring skiing." However, I digress.

Snow squalls are little whirling dervishes of snow gusts that attempt to blind the drivers so that they will visit snow banks which is part of the tourism feature of any winter highway. We had no issues, although we were warned twice by signs on the Maine Turnpike (after the sign, which I literally anticipate every single time I am in Maine--"Maine, the way life should be." That's just cute.) We heard from our friends and other skiers that the conditions on the mountain that day were roughly equivalent to a tornado-led whiteout. 

Sugarloaf Mountain. Awesome, but only about half open.

We were staying in a condo I found in VRBO.com. I love these condo rentals in general--we've had nothing but good luck with them. Our 3-bedroom condo was not ski in-ski out but it was close to midlift so we walked five minutes in our ski boots, snapped on our skis, and descended another minute to the Snubber (possibly the ugliest-named ski lift I have ever met) to ride up to the base lodge area. Love it.

Now on the first day we had to rent equipment and get the kids all set up in ski school. First the kids. In a word, the ski school at Sugarloaf Mountain is fantastic. Truly. Okay, that was two words. Friendly, helpful, and they feed the kids some kind of mountain crack that cures a boy scared of skiing and chair lifts and makes him love every minute. Even when we had The Incident. But that's for later.  The classes went from 9:30 to 3 pm, and included lunch. The kids loved it. 

Then BH and I trompled up to rentals. After filling out monstrous amounts of paperwork about how we will not sue anyone or attempt to climb trees while wearing skis or whatever else I initialed, we had our equipment. And here is my plea to all you MITs out there. Please, please, please invent a better snow boot. That is one technology that has not changed in the 25 intervening years of my last real skiing. Dang, they're uncomfortable. And not pretty. There must be a better way. And yes, I know that they are how they are so I don't shatter my ankle in 15 places...still....

In another aside, I have to mention one big change from 20 years ago. Helmets: somewhere in the intervening 15 years since I have last really skied, everyone, or close to everyone wears helmets. There doesn't seem to be that whole Hell's Angels macho thing that you don't need to wear one, whatever. I think I only saw one person without a helmet during the whole four-day weekend. I credit the media on showing that crap happens like running into a tree--even to Michael Schumacher. So, good on us all. Plus they're warm. Love my helmet. It's purple.

And then we were out the door. Here is the truth of the truth and the snow of the snow (sorry ee cummings, I am butchering you), it is in fact just like riding a bicycle. Within five minutes, I had remembered everything including what happens when you cross your ski tips, or catch an edge. Within 20 minutes, I had crashed while trying to snow my friend's daughter (turns out that ice is not good for snowing). Within an hour I was loving it again. And a good thing too because Saturday was minus nine degrees. That's Fahrenheit. That's coooooooooooolllllldddddd.  And here I am getting to my point.

On our second lift ride up on the Whiffletree quad (I kept calling it Whifflepuff: I'm re-reading the Harry Potter books and it just sounds right), we sat next to a well-bundled up skier from Maine. And after hearing we had moved from Brazil, he said to us "The secret to surviving winter in New England is to embrace it."  When it's snowy and cold and horrible, snap on the skis and get out there. When the driveway freezes and your snowplower guy doesn't show up, skate on it. Embrace it. And that is what we are trying to do: embrace it. And wear face masks, two layers of long underwear, put those hot spot thingies in our boots and gloves and freeze. And embrace it. 

This blog would go on for pages and pages about how much we embraced it and had fun even after the superquad broke and we had a half-hour line at Whifflepuff on Sunday. And then it rained all night Sunday to Monday, killing off most of the snow and exposing the ice fields. At one point there were eight of us skiing together on an intermediate slope--even our experts skier was with us, and we had So. Much. Fun. 

Pretty much the weather we got (minus the 80 degrees) in four days. Oh plus minus-9.

The only not-fun is what I called The Incident. On the last day of skiing, which was Ice Monday, the kids were with us. The eight year old beginner skiers. And we decided to take them up a longer beginner run, which in retrospect was a major error on my part. Lalo was going to make it down no problem because he was skiing behind his hero (see cast of characters). Nico was going to look at the long downhill and freak out. And he did. He couldn't turn on the ice (in his defense, I could barely turn on the ice). We tried to make it down with him snow-plowing (apparently it is now called Pizza-ing) between my skis but the ice made us cross skis and crash. It took us nearly 40 minutes to get down a 7 minute slope. 

At the end, he was trying to make it down one bit by himself, and started going too fast, could not pizza, crossed his skis, fell and kept sliding fast towards the tree line. So I crushed him. Yep, it is an unknown ski move where the momma bear freaks out, skis over and tackles the child with her own body to stop the slide. I can only imagine what this looked like to the rest of the skiers out there. Nico then unsquished himself, shook himself off and said "mom, I think I'll walk from here." He walked down in his ski boots, then snapped his skis back on when he got to the bunny slopes and took off. No permanent damage. We skied for two more hours...but on the bunny slopes.

The weekend was filled with skiing, good food, fireplaces, kids and friends, laughter, the DeflateGate AFC championship game watched at our friend's condo, and a lot of freakin' cold weather. I embrace you, winter. What's next?


Cast of characters:

Me and the BH (Brazilian husband): intermediate and beginner skiers, respectively. Well, BH is higher than beginner--he can get down just about any hill but really only picked up skiing as an adult. I would not push him down a black diamond though unless I was pretty sure his life insurance is up to date.

The twins, age 8: skied once in Illinois (400 feet of vertical drop, I think it was officially measured).Did awesome.

The Freibors: Alyson is a Minnesota-Wyoming girl and a high intermediate or low expert. Her Slovak husband is craque. That is Brazilian for holy cow. He wore a bright red jumpsuit on the hill which looked orange to me with my red goggles. His wife called him Big Red, I called him traffic cone. Not to his face. He could push me down a black diamond too.

The Freibors kids: Luke, age 13, Lalo's hero. Pictured above. Lalo would follow him down a black diamond probably. Alex, age 10, the snowboarder. Sam, age 6, the card-carrying ski school bomber. He did at least 50 more miles than the rest of us by skiing down the lower slopes and being hauled up on the Moose Caboose snowmobile. And Ava, age 2, who was in child care and skiing. And will be better than me by next year.

The Wendys: my friend from Wellesley who is around the same level as I am (oh, all right, she's bettter) and who I love to ski with given our skiing together 27 years ago (!!!) at Wellesley and having numerous adventures, one of which was skidding out on the highway in her Chevy Sprint and winding up in a huge snowbank. No harm, no foul. And her kids who I am not sure I'm allowed to name so I won't, a 14-year old girl who is better than I, and an 11 year old boy who also fit in the intermediate level.

On Nor'Easters - Weston, MA

How my kids envision a "nor'easter"

I spent a year in Brazil writing daily blogs about everyday life there. I found a lot of humor in daily contacts and in circumstantial occurrences as well as the underlying culture of the place. It was the type of blog that can only be written when you are relatively new to a place because things strike you as strange, or funny, or sad, or wonderful or all of the above. It was focused on São Paulo state because that is where I lived--though it is called Brazil in My Eyes, it was really My Little Corner of São Paulo in My Eyes. 

The idea of this blog was bringing new eyes to the place where I grew up and lived for the first 21 years of my life--New England.  I can't count my five years in California or two in Illinois or six in Miami because as I'm sure most of you realize, this country is so completely different from one end to the other, west/east/north/south. Don't get my started on Californians. Or Texans. One day I'm going to go spend some time in Texas and get a blog going on all the Don't Tread on Me stuff. And fried butter. Fascinating stuff. 

Things that have amused the heck out of me so far: the endless fundraising (seriously I must get a flyer a week to donate money, teddy bears, toys, my time, etc), the Bostonian accent (yeah, this is JAH-vis (Jarvis) Appliance--we've got yer "PAAAHT (part)", the soccer mom culture (I've got 6800 miles on my four month old car from driving to activities) and the school bus stop which is my favorite social time every day. I hate when the bus is early. 

One of the recent amusements has been the "nor'easter". Now, please note that I am amused by this only because we have yet to face a serious storm here. I note that wikipedia says that we had a "Halloween 2014 nor'easter" and I recall that as flurries here in Weston. We went out in snow boots and ski jackets and the neighbors laughed at the tropical folk. 

The reason to be amused by the "nor'easter" is because of the absolute joy the use of this word brings to media folk. If you have any journalist friends, whisper it in their ears and watch them light up. A nor'easter is (summarizing 1500 words of wikipedia) a badass storm. Not a hurricane which loves warm oceans and winds, but a storm that loves the cold. A Canadian storm.  No, just kidding though I do note that wikipedia blames Nova Scotia in general.  If you want the technical definition, have at wikipedia: "A nor'easter is formed in a strong extratropical cyclone, usually experiencing bombogenesis." (source here). Sounds cool, right?

Holy crap--look what Canada did! Nor'easter March 2013. From wikipedia

Well, it's not cool. Yesterday it brought all day rain. All day. Which was a good thing in the end because early in the morning we had some snowy ice that was completely hard core. My 11-year old labrador from Brazil had no idea what it was, ran out the kitchen door, skidded on the stoop, sledded on her stomach down three steps, and wound up in a huge heap by the concrete garden rabbit. No permanent injuries but a sadly bewildered face. I skipped kung fu fit due to serious fear of driving in the yuck.

What's funny to me is I don't remember the term being used when I grew up in Connecticut. We had bad storms yes, but the media (okay, then relegated to a box called a TV--no personal computers or internet then, kiddies) didn't froth themselves up repeating the word every five minutes. 

I am in fact so completely opposed to the overuse of the word now that I am considering taking up the cause of Edgar Comee who according to Wikipedia 

"waged a determined battle against use of the term "nor'easter" by the press which usage he considered "a pretentious and altogether lamentable affectation" and "the odious, even loathsome, practice of landlubbers who would be seen as salty as the sea itself". (source here). 

Apparently Mr. Comee send hundreds of postcards and spent most of his life railing against the term. According to wikipedia, he was profiled in the New Yorker for that battle. I like him. Well, he's dead now, but I mean posthumously. 

All this frothing about storms reminds me of living in Miami for six years. Lordy, that town's media love a hurricane. I learned so much stuff about when a storm is in the box, out of the box, dirty side, clean side, which category was which speed and if my roof had grippers on it to keep it from flying off (it did). I can still see a number of the local news journalists almost bouncing from the excitement of impending doom.

All joking aside though, a nor'easter took down two huge pines in the backyard here two years ago--my backyard has a major hole where those majestic 35-foot trees grew. The former owner told me about it and losing power for 10 days. Which is why I have figured out how to light the fire in the four fireplaces and know which of my neighbors have generators so I can go hang out over there. 

Now I know better to challenge Mother Nature (what could possibly go wrong, indeed), so I'm just going to keep the fingers crossed that these badass storms could just buzz off this year. I can only handle so much welcome back to New England and fighting with the leaf care guys is exhausting enough.  Makes me want a snowblower.