I like how I wrote the saddest post ever, left it up for a a bit, and then I completely disappeared and the blog shut down.

It made everything seem so much more melodramatic than the actual truth.

The  truth was I forgot I needed to renew my blog, spent the money elsewhere, and remembered too late to do anything other than wait for my next paycheck to turn the lights back on.

I suppose I could incorporate the renewal and hosting and other boring background stuff for this blog into our regular budget, but this blog is mine.

It’s not an ours/married thing, it’s mine, all mine, and it’s not to be sullied by practical, accountanty things like budgets and schedules.

Of course, it’s also the only bill that’s regularly forgotten about and regularly goes overdue and gets shut off…. but let’s not focus on that.

Anyways, the blog hosting is back, for another 3 months or so. If it suddenly disappears again in late April or May, you’ll know why.

I’m not in the mood to be sad today, so in reference to my post about Caspian all I’m gonna say is that I read every single one of your words, multiple times, and that I wish  everyone had people like you in their lives to help them heal when sad things happen. You helped more than you know.

Moving on, before I get maudlin.

Monday morning I tried to use my windshield wipers to clear the snow off of my windshield. It worked – sort of.

I mean, technically it worked – the wet snow went sliding off the sides of the car with soft plopping sounds, but when the windshield wipers tried to return to their normal position, they couldn’t.  There was too much snow built up at their base.

Clunk.  Clunk.  Clunk.  Clunk.  The wipers sounded whiny, almost petulant as they tried to click back into place.

I sighed, and got out to scoop the snow with my hands.  I thought it would be a quick affair, but there was more of it than I had thought. We had about 3-4 inches come down over the weekend, but Sunday night’s rain had turned everything into a heavy, sodden mess. It looked like snow, but it acted more like a half-melted slushy without any syrup in it.

We were promised a Snowmageddon up here near Portland, but unfortunately for us, it was just a few degrees too warm. A couple hundred of feet more in elevation or a couple hundred miles north, people were trapped with almost a foot and a half of snow.

Alas for Bean Acres, every time we built up any inches, the rain would swoop in and melt it. 

I
It made for a couple of cute pictures, but overall it was a bit of a letdown.

The next morning the snow was rapidly getting melted by the rain, but not fast enough for my morning commute. It took several minutes of scooping before I was finally able to replace the windshield wipers to their normal position, and by the time I opened the door to huddle in the driver’s seat and blow on my frozen hands, my fingers were an angry red.

“BRRRR.  BRRRR, it’s COLD out there,” I complained, to nobody in particular.  I alternated between blowing on my stinging, clumsy fingertips and trying to fumble my seatbelt on.

“You putta onna da hat,” came Magpie’s slightly disgusted tone, floating up from her car seat in the middle row.

She’s not quite as verbal as Squid was, but she was so unintelligible for so long that her sentences still startle me when they come out so clear.

Of course, clear is kind of a relative term. 

Half the time she sounds like she’s pretending  to be Italian, with her random “a’s” she tends to stick on the end of words.

The other half, especially when she’s angry, she sounds like an irritable Russian grandma from a cheesy 80’s film. “Vat? Vat you vont, Feen?  Vhy you do dis to me?”

Today she sounded Italian, and also slightly put out that she had to explain something so simple to me. There was something so sensible, so practical in her tone.  If I was cold, why hadn’t I bothered to put on my hat?  She had put on her hat.  Her head was warm, nice and snug beneath her pink and blue Paw Patrol knit cap. Why couldn’t her mother follow her good example, rather than sit there and complain about it?

“It’s not that kind of cold, Magpie.” I tried to ignore the feeling that I shouldn’t have to defend my actions to a toddler.

“You cold. You putta onna da hat.”

“No, it’s not that kind of cold.  I was scooping snow with my hands.  That’s why I was cold – my hands are cold from touching the snow.”

“Mama putta onna da snodoves.” 

“I don’t own any snow gloves, or I would have.”

“You putta onna da pockets.”

“…. What?”

“You cold,” she said in weary disapproval, turning her head to stare out the minivan window.

Life is an exhausting affair, especially when you are saddled with a mother who can’t manage even the simplest of tasks without constant reminders.


“You cold,” she repeated in her world-weary voice. “You putta da hands onna da pockets.”

“Fine,” I conceded, having been verbally outmaneuvered by a knee-high person who still goes peepee in her diaper.  “You’re right.  Putting my hands in my pockets would have kept my hands warm.”

“Yah,” she said, her tone turning to something a little less condescending.  “Pockets.” At least her mother understood that she was right. The world would run so much smoother, if more people just listened to Magpie’s good sense.  She stared out the window, content with the wisdom she had imparted, and began singing quietly to herself.  “Tinkle, tinkle, widda stawr… How-a I a-wonda…whewr you aaaaahhh…”

She’s not even three yet, guys.

Someone hold me. I have a feeling I’m in for a looooooong teenagerhood.