Big Day.

Kind of a big day here at ANYLF, since it did, in fact, snow, though not in the stick-to-the-streets shut-the-city-down storm-of-the-century way that I always, of course, hope for every time. But it's lovely out there all the same.

No sleds. No snowmen. No days off from school for the kids, no good excuse to call in late to work, no chance of selling anyone on the idea that you couldn't get the car up the driveway. If you had some kind of onerous social commitment tonight, you've still got it. Science Fair project due Monday? Still due. But it snowed.

I think the low ended up tracking well east of where they'd thought it might, and apparently east and south of here they're getting more serious snow — there is such a thing, it seems, as a Heavy Snow Warning, which is of course the new #1 wish on the ANYLF wish list — but I like it this way. I might not like it more this way than other ways, but there's something subtle about our snow today, more like a reminder than a storm, more like a note we've received in the mail. Evidence. Proof. This kind of thing still goes on.

It started snowing around 12:45 and it's still going, even if the back edge of it is already showing up on the radar. I could do with a few days of this, though. I've got a bag of charcoal. I've got some soup in the freezer. I've got tea and coffee and various other necessaries in the house. Let's hunker down, I say. Let's none of us leave our houses for 48 hours.

The dog likes it. She's not entirely sure what to do about it, but she likes it. This is the face you get first. Then there is the sneeze-barking and the running. Then there is the general checking of the perimeter, as pictured earlier. There are things to do, after all. Tasks to complete. It's snowing.

I guess if you live where this kind of thing happens all the time, some of the wonder goes out of it. I lived in Boston for a while, and the snow piles up along the streets, going gray and filthy after a while. A new snowfall cleans it all back up again, makes everything new, but you know what's coming. Here, though— here it can be beautiful without anything being attached to it. One small free thing. I don't want to knock other places to live. Boston had plenty to admire, weather included. But back down here, back home, snow still feels like some kind crazy invention, a thrilling accident, something to be looked at. You want to knock on people's doors. Have you been outside today? you want to ask them. You want to tell them, It's snowing.