Snow adventures

My mother-in-law, dressed for a Georgia winter, surveys the Hudson during a New York snowstorm.

We've had some snow adventures lately.

One was last week's "snowicane" over Manhattan. It snowed 20" in two days, which may not seem like much if you live in Buffalo, but it's a lot for New York City. Whenever I looked at the radar, a ring of clouds was spinning right over Queens--our own personal snow hurricane. Sometimes the sun would break out, only to cloud up and start snowing again half an hour later. It was pretty.

But there was a catch: My mother and my mother-in-law were trying to get here from Georgia to see CZ in two weekend performances. I spent the better part of Wednesday and Thursday on the phone trying to get their flight changed, which meant that for each permutation I had to call the airline, then call my mother, then call my mother-in-law. By Thursday afternoon I felt like I was personally flying the plane. But it worked!

And it was fun. It's quite amusing to watch people you've known for your whole life (or at least twenty-two years) finally get to know each other. You get to see a lot of familiar traits in new combinations. And now my mother and mother-in-law are friends. After they left, I asked CZ what it was like staying alone in the apartment with both grandmas at the same time. She said, "It was interesting, but at one point they were both telling me I couldn't go out the door without my snowboots!" One teen, two grandmas. Heh, heh.

And where were Bob and I when this happened? We rented out a neighbor's extra apartment so each grandma could have her own bed, and we could have two bathrooms among us. And we could even watch the Olympics on the apartment's TV, which was handy since we don't have a TV anymore. All in all, it was a very nice arrangement. Of course, most of the time we were downstairs with our moms and CZ.

East coast skiing, as seen via cell-phone camera from a ski lift

The other snow adventure was the end of our second homeschool-group ski season. We ski in eastern Pennsylvania six times from January through early March. And I am proud to report that I can now ski blue slopes. Even if our blues are more like the green slopes out West, we have ice (alternating with slush), so it's still challenging! I'm actually having fun now. I'm still way wimpier than CZ, who started skiing at the same time, but who cares? (Except for CZ.)

And you know how skiing all day makes you crazy tired and hungry? Well, we have a favorite bakery that we like to visit with our other carpool family on the way out of town. The people at this bakery make yummy apple cider doughnuts, and the coffee's not bad, either. The only problem is, sometimes by the time we get there in the late afternoon, the doughnuts are all gone.

Once when this happened a couple of ski days back, we got danishes instead and were in the process of getting coffee on the other side of the bakery when two boys from another family in our group, the Ws, burst into the bakery like a commando unit. Unfortunately, one of the boys (I'll call him Z) is getting too old to do this without scaring strangers.

"Aaaaaauuuuuuggggggh!" he yelled, turning towards us and stamping his foot in a too-convincing mock fury. "We're too late! You got the last doughnuts!!!" Heads turned. Perhaps the other customers in this quiet, rural bakery could be forgiven for looking at him as though he might be unstable. Or maybe they were the ones who got the last doughnuts.

Well, the W family just happened to be walking beside us as we left the ski lodge this week, and someone, somehow, mentioned the doughnuts. The next thing we know, the same boy is yelling to his dad and brother, "Come on! We have to beat them to the doughnuts!" and suddenly people from several families (including a bewildered guest) were stampeding across the wooden bridge towards the parking lot, bags flapping.

When we caught up with Bob and our other carpool friends, they took up the challenge too. "Quick, everybody in the van!" yelled the mom. Having thrown in our bags and slammed the doors, we looked up just in time to see the W dad tearing full speed across the parking lot.

The scene of the doughnut crime

Unfortunately, they were nearer the exit and got to the bakery first. Z greeted us at the door with, "They were out of doughnuts, but they're making our family a dozen." He looked very smug. He then proceeded to buy an enormous cupcake with frosting, which he couldn't eat, so he kept breaking off bits for other children in our ski group as though they were sparrows. (By now the whole bakery was flocked with home-skiers.) Elsewhere, a boy who comes from a family of five children was hoarding an enormous crumb cake. CZ and her guest were politely sharing their different varieties of danish. The third girl in our carpool, fresh off a gluten-free diet, was happily devouring a cupcake and a danish, and not sharing. But not to be outdone, our group ordered a dozen doughnuts, too, and everyone left the bakery happy.

I guess our exhilaration, plus an alarming intake of sugar, accounts for the chaos in our car on the two-hour ride home. All three teenage girls were in high gear. Even younger brother J, clearly disappointed that we had bypassed Dairy Queen for the bakery, perked up when Bob started teaching him Italian, starting with the words that are the same in English, like il iPod (pronounced ee-pode). They got so silly that finally J, despite years of acquaintance with our family, asked Bob in confusion, "Are you a dad?" His mom and I split a warm doughnut and talked so much that she missed a turnoff. A good end to another ski season.