Snow in HOTlanna!

It snowed yesterday. I know those of you in the colder realms are thinking "Yeah, well, it's winter" but here in Atlanta we A.) are thrilled to have any precipitation and 2.) Don't see a lot of snow, ever. We haven't had much of it since I moved here in 1999. And I was cheated my entire 3 years in NYC by never once seeing any snow with accumulation. So, when it started yesterday at the beginning of rush hour, I was thrilled, despite the unpleasant commute it heralded.

I had plenty of time sitting in my car to snap a shot of said weather:

My trip home took one hour and forty minutes. It's about 19 miles. Ordinarily a drive like that (and they're not all that uncommon) would leave me irritated, frazzled and end with me stalking past the people I love most in the world and my pets to the wine fridge. Drink, then kisses all around. But the snow is so quieting. I thought it would show a few fat clumps and then turn into rain but it didn't. It snowed and snowed and snowed some more. I watched it in the street lights, mesmerized. It's beautiful. I thought of the line from the Tori Amos song "I get a little warm in my heart when I think of winter". Snow has always had this effect on me. As the sky darkened and the leafless trees shown as silhouettes behind the unending shower of fluffy white my mind wandered to the good things.

The things we do to stay warm. I was transported back to my parents' house. When it snowed I would watch it through the picture window in the living room. Dad would obligingly put a fire in the fireplace and I could sit there with hot chocolate or hot tea and a book and a cat and warm dog and enjoy the quiet. The next day there'd be no school because even the threat of snow would result in cancelled school, and I'd don layers and layers of clothes, invite all my friends from the neighborhood over and we'd go sledding down the tiny hill across the field in front of my house. My dog Zach would come. He loved the snow, I think he knew how the whiteness of it showed off his gorgeous, sleek blackness.

Staring at the snow pelting down in the red glow of the brake lights in front of me, I was back there - where weather was the reason for an impromptu celebration. I wanted to call all my old friends and tell them I miss them and still love them even though I never call to tell them that. By bedtime the snow had turned into rain, as it does here. But this morning much of the grass was still white with the memory of it. It was a nice little treat.

If it takes me that long to home again tonight I'll most likely kill someone.