Ann's daughter, part 2

I am still my mother's daughter.  If looking pretty much like photocopy of her doesn't make that case, then there's always how I spent today.

We got about 12 inches of snow last night, so ...

I got up this morning on time,
had breakfast,
checked on-line to see if Ride-On* was running (no),
shoveled out my car,
tried to sell the kid near me who was helping his Dad on the moral imperative of cleaning off the top of the car (with illustrative anecdote), and
went back upstairs and changed into dry pants.

Then I made real hot chocolate with milk, **
enjoyed it while listening to public radio,
put on coat, scarf, hat, and gloves, and
walked to work.***

Pretty much every single item on that list comes right out of the Ann Snow Day Handbook.  One time, when Sara and I were kids, there was a snow day on the day we had a dentist's appointment.  So instead of rescheduling, letting us sleep late, making French Toast, and playing board games, Mom rousted us out of bed before our normal get up time because Mom made 8:00 dentist appointments and, because our dead-end street didn't get plowed very often made us walk the mile and a half through the snow to our appointment. ****

I'm pretty sure that it was uphill both ways, too.  Mom had lots of hardy pioneer spirit.

She would have been so proud of me today. *****



* The county run bus system.

** Mom wasn't a fan of processed foods.  Among the things that Sara and I loved that Mom hated were Pop-Tarts, tubes of raw cookie dough, and Swiss Miss.  Once, in an effort to lure us away from the grey powder, she made us "instant cocoa" from powered milk, powdered sugar, and cocoa.  The fact that we thought that it was "good but not Swiss Miss" and "kinda weird" probably gave her a real nice warm glow inside.

*** So that I didn't lose my good parking space.  It's easier to walk a mile in this weather than it is to get over losing the space one has shoveled out.

**** It can safely be assumed that I am still outraged by this.  

***** Of course, she would also be very confused because as I remember any shoveling that she asked me or Sara to do -- or anything else that even hinted of hardy pioneer spirit -- made us complain loudly and piercingly or quietly and sullenly.  Probably me more than Sara.  She had at least some hardy pioneer spirit.