"Snowday - rules are made to be frozen"

My first adult snowday felt nearly as good as childhood snowdays. My alarm went off this morning, but as I don't have a tv I tried to find cancelations on the internet. The Resource Exchange is kind of an obscure cancelation, so I had to call in. "I'm glad you called," said the community participation manager. "We've canceled today."

Last night, I wrote to myself, "I would like to sleep late, drink coffee, read, and snowshoe up the street. That is all I want to do."

I couldn't snowshoe up the street today because the snow was wet and melted on the pavement. Naomi and I decided that the necessary snowday supplies were wine, peppermint schnapps, hot chocolate, and pumpkin for baking. As it turns out, I could have easily driven, but I walked instead, trying to stay true to my snowshoeing ambitions. The trip was not romantic, as the cars on the road were large and proud of their big tires, and some of the other people walking were more miserable than pleasant. Except the man with a clean dark coat and a perfect white beard who picked his way through the slush for a pack of cigarettest at 7-11. I wanted to touch his whiskers.

The local overpriced natural foods store "forgot" to order pumpkin for the most pumpkiny season, and their HC ("and by that I don't mean Hot Chicks" - Dan Goodnow) was close to $6. Bullshit. I walked back to our local wine and spirit store, where the staff is almost too anxious to be knowledgable. I like that about them, that they try so hard to cultivate an international experience each time you buy wine in their tiny strip-mall storefront. As per my indescriminate wine tastes, I normally try to select the cheapest bottle with the prettiest label, but noting my dawdling, the red-faced seller rushed over to ask me what I was looking for. Afraid to reveal myself, I said, "Red" and after a slight thought, the man breezed around the store, sweeping up bottles like he was picking fruit from his own grove. He selected four and placed them on the counter, and started to switch the bottles around in exactly the manner of a magician concealing a ball underneath four identical cups. He explained that they were arranged from light to dark, and described each. I said I liked lighter, as the lightest was towards the least expensive. (I could have bought a large, perfectly satisfactory bottle with an okay label for $7.29! But apparently this man had come to save me from my own tastes, as he appeared to have some disdain for Yellow Tail.) He shooed off the darker, and refreshed the lineup with two more, "a simple Californian" with an imaginative label that said simply, "Red Wine." But I chose the next, a fruity red with a classy label for $9.99. And threw in the $2.99 schnapps for Naomi.

I drove to Safeway for the HC and the pumpkin, and baked two loaves of pumpkin bread. We've recently been asking ourselves the question, "What fruit or vegetable bread would you have if you had to eat only one fruit or vegetable bread for the rest of your life?" Mine is banana bread, but the pumpkin bread turned out quiet well. Naomi didn't drink any of her schnapps or wine, as she left for her home/dentist appointment this afternoon, but I've progressed quite well through Bulletin Place, showing distinct berry characters and named for the oldest commercial building still in use in Australia. Leading me to believe that if I lived alone, I would drink by myself and listen to emotionally expressive and personally sentimental music very loudly on my stereo and pine away for Ira Glass as I slowly fall in love with This American Life.