SNOW

In CHENGDU?!?!?

According to Pat this happens "like one every 10 years." Needless to say, when he came home from work, covered in icy white flakes, and said "I've been calling you for 15 minutes!" I lost my well-maintained cool and jumped outside, shoeless, to stand in wide-eyed wonder. It's not been too long since I last saw snow (dad and I took a trip to Maine this fall and happened to catch just a bit then), but snow in China, especially here in the urbanized armpit of China (which is a term of endearment that could be applied to any major city), is just different.

It reminds me of calmness. I suppose it always has, this snow stuff. But even moreso now. Snow is this silent harbinger of simplicity and grace and childhood deliciousness- hot chocolates, candy canes, wool hats and mittens. It makes things right in an often very wrong world. My friends in New Hampshire will laugh at me- they have experienced far more of it than I have and I imagine have a very different opinion of it than me. But I will keep my childish enthusiasm all the same, thank you.

Until that is, the snow showers tonight mess with our flights tomorrow (we are off to a spectacular-rumored- National Park a little to the North of us). Then I will complain, and fuss and cause a scene.

I am what I am- nothing if not completely immature.

IT'S SNOWING IN CHENGDU!!!