Just a Few Flakes

"Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while."

Kin Hubbard

I wasn't even out of the school parking lot when my cell phone sang. It was 6:45 a.m. It was Meredith.

It was Meredith? I had just dropped her off at the entrance less than a minute before. She hadn't been expecting a ride this morning. But, thanks to my trusty text message alert from Denver CBS4 last night, I knew what she didn't anticipate. We were going to wake up to a blanket of white, and we were going to like it. What choice did we have about it? We might as well get happy.

"Mom, I forgot something." Great. "Something important." It's pouring down snow, I couldn't sleep past 5:30, and I was thinking about packing it in for another hour or so to let the two Aleve kick in. My knees are killing me this morning, and I don't have sports, surgeries, or rehab to blame.

"You're kidding." I was creeping down the steep hill part of Wildcat Reserve Parkway at about 15 mph, anticipating the right turn back into the community that sometimes doesn't work out if the traffic behind is too impatient. It's not a turn that can be made well even on dry pavement ahead of a speed limit of 45 mph, that is generally mistaken to be more like 60 mph.

No kidding. The video camera she borrowed from a teacher over the weekend was left at the end of her bed. While I waited for her, I had overheard the sound of the sliding computer keyboard at her desk. So, she certainly had enough time to look around and remember everything.

Did I ask her if she had everything? I usually do. But, this morning, my first concern was whether she had put anything into her stomach. No mother wants to think she has sent her child to school without food on a morning with pouring down snow and a sub-freezing temperature. At almost 17-years-old, she doesn't like me to make it, plate it, and serve it up if she didn't have input to it. So, I stopped trying that a while ago.

"What do you want to do?" A lot of mothers would have taken the "too bad, so sad" approach to this problem and let her hang for the day. Not me. I don't have a good reason to put her in a bind, since the school is just up the hill.

But, it's up the hill on a morning when it's pouring down snow. No sign of stopping. It always looks that way. Like it will never stop. Like the sun will never shine again. Like it will never melt and like grass will never grow again.

I don't want to do it. But, I will. Go back at 10 a.m., park the car, walk in the snow to the security sign-in sheet, stand by the office and wait for her to come out of class to the front of the building and take the hand-off.

"Will you pick me up this afternoon if it's still snowing and it's cold?"

We've lived in Colorado long enough to know that this storm could do one of only two things: (1) go on for days and leave us with four feet; (2) stop by Noon, followed by bright sunshine, followed by the rapid meltdown and drip-drip-drip of running water off the roof.

"We'll be in text about it."

At the moment we make the camera exchange at 10 a.m., we might know the answer about walking vs. riding this afternoon. It's just a matter of time.

CBS4 just called again. "Denver snow becomes lighter through morning." Thanks, that would be really helpful.

Wait -- here's a text update. "Winter weather advisory now in effect on Front Range until 11 a.m. (blowing snow, low visibilities & winter driving conditions)."

Thanks, I think.