Thanks, Baba Yaga

               As I sit here typing this, Baba Yaga (or Grandfather Frost or Jack Frost or whoever is your version of the spirit of cold) has really paid the Northeast a grand visit.  Close to a foot of snow has fallen with this last storm and currently it is 2 degrees below zero with a windchill of negative 20 something or other. There are a lot of people shoveling out and dreaming of palm trees and warmer climes.  I am not one of them.  Yesterday's storm and today's cold are my happy place.  This a post to THANK Baba Yaga for showing me such a lovely time.

               I am not a fool mind you. Goo and I usually walk to our local grocery store on Friday mornings.  Feisty Pants is normally in school and except for our cells in case of emergency, we get to have a few blissful hours of nobody wanting anything from us.  And get some form of exercise other than jumping to conclusions.  But FP is on vacation so no way was I dragging her out in this.   Freezing temps are usually better for her (no mildew) but this level of cold  would take anybody's breath away.  But I don't live outside.  And I do live in the 21st century with central heat and good cable and the internet and automatic coffee makers.  Feisty Pants got a ton of fleece pj pants for Christmas, so she is warm and comfy and watching reruns of Tanked on Discovery and bitching we won't let her go out in the snow.  And Goo gets to go to sleep a few hours earlier than planned and sleep until he just simply is ready to get up. (A rare and wondrous thing in this household.) I'll simply use this time to do the chores I would do tomorrow (we will go run errands then)  and try to be graceful about having to be flexible.

               Which is, in a kind of round about way, my point.  As the mother of a special needs child, I am really good at the big important kind of flexibility.  You know, the holy hell its three am , pack your bags, we're going to Philly now kind of way.  I actually used to keep at suitcase packed at all times.  (I have two sets of clothing- my old ratty get coughed at home clothes and my better go the hospital and coughed on there set.)  What I am bad at is the little oops you gotta to go the store LATER kind of flexibility.  I am used to having to get everything done NOW rightthisveryminutedammit or I won't be able to get it done.   Having to bend a little is probably good for me.  And the fact is having to bend because of the gorgeous snowfall and the exquisite stark cold day out there makes it easier to do. I absolutely adore storms, and snow and ice are some of my favorite things on this planet.  So if the lesson is one being graceful in defeat of my purpose, if the lesson is to learn to be flexible even when my goals are thwarted, then thank you Baba Yaga for giving  us a lovely storm and the beauty of winter snow and ice to mollify the annoyance of the lesson.