Snow & the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse*

It snowed on Friday night. I woke up at 3am or so, and went to the bathroom, then peered out into the gloom that should have been gloomier.

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"That's snow on the roofs. It will be gone by the time I wake up. Just to be sure, I'm turning off the alarm & sleeping in."

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It didn't work. I didn't get to sleep in because herself started singing at 7:30am. Also, when I finally pried myself out of bed and looked out the windows, this is what I saw:

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That's the cherry tree in bloom, the peonies almost in full bloom, all the bedding plants that the man spent so much time nurturing... etc.

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The poor mayday tree in the front yard was all drooped over - it was just hitting full bloom. That's rather how it made me feel, too.

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This is also how the snow made me feel. (I'd originally put my open hand next to the snow so you could see how much there was, but I realized that this gave a better sense of both scale & my emotions.)

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So we drove away. I'd like to say that it was pure escapism, but we'd planned to go to the man's hometown after attending a certain S____'s first birthday party. The cupcakes were great, the party was fun, but the road trip was, well.

Amoryn is travelling much better than I am these days. I'm getting wickedly motion sick. She slept & sang. I slept, and knitted** a little while looking at the horizon & breathing shallowly.

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We go to K____ just fine, had a nice supper with Grandma J____ & Grandpa E____, then headed off to Aunt K___ & Uncle R____'s to bunk down for the night.

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I woke up the next morning to hear Amoryn coughing, then coughing, then coughing. I was just thinking "I should get her a drink" when I heard her little voice say "Uh-oh..."

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Sure enough, uh-oh it was. The man & I spent the next three or four hours cleaning up, trying to snuggle her, keep her warm, & force her to get sick in her bucket. I think Am thinks the bucket is making her sick, so trying to get her to get sick INTO the bucket involves pinning her arms in a quasi-Mexican wrestling move. Poor girl. She seemed to perk up after about 5 hours, but was restricted to crackers & clear liquids for the rest of the day. Luckily, this is not so different than her preferred diet some days, so not so awful.

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Although in the afternoon, her canine teeth started really bugging her. And I have a milder version of whatever she had - although I almost would have preferred getting sick & having done with, instead of weebling around.

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We survived the night (although there were several wakings in the night, and one re-medication), and headed back to home with Grandpa in tow. He's on his way to the coast to help M____ & L____ with some renos.
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The car trip was similar. Some comfort knitting for me, some made-up singing about funny tomatoes & bunnies for Amoryn ("funny mo-ma-mo, bunny hop hop hop"), a conference call for the man, and some sleeping, and a lot of horizon staring with shallow breathing for me as well.

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But I survived. And when we got home, we were delighted to see that most of the plants did too! (I'd embraced the idea that everything but the sweetpeas & maybe the strawberries & rhubarb would be dead.)

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The miniature roses I got for mother's day survived - and one even opened a bloom! (That's zeolite on the ground - a garden input - not snow.)

The heliotrope didn't fare so well. Neither did the marigolds or the four o'clocks.

But much to my delight, the peonies and the cherry & apple trees are looking just fine! Huzzah! Flowers & scent & fruit, oh my! So all's well that ends well, although if we could have skipped the flu, the motion sickness, & the snow, that would have been just fine by me.

The man is taking his dad to the airport even as I type, & I'm going to go & watch Sesame Street with my girl.

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*That's pestilence or plague, right? Gotta be.
**I find the act of knitting very soothing, & I don't need to look at Shawl That Counting to work on it.