For the Love of Sitting

I went home to Virginia this past weekend, to celebrate my mom, to celebrate my parents' 35th wedding anniversary, and to just escape the city for a spell.

It was lovely, being home.  There was cake, and dim sum, and a dachshund.  I helped my parents pick out paint colors and fabric swatches, and my mom insisted on showing me a Tivo'd episode of Dancing With the Stars, so that I could see for myself just what a travesty (her word) it was that Pam Anderson had been sent home that week.

(My verdict: I don't know if it was a travesty, exactly. Pam's Viennese Waltz seemed fine to me, but then - what do I know of Viennese Waltzes?)

My parents recently added a screened-in porch to their house, and I spent many hours sitting out there - drinking coffee, listening to Blue Jays screech, cat-napping, catching up on The New Yorker, reading the paper. (You want to know what's a travesty?  The current state of the Washington Post. Sad.)

I love that porch, I'll tell you what.  You're outside, you're inside.  You can feel cool breezes, but the bugs can't get to you.  You can see see sun beams without being burned by them.  So nice. I want a porch of my own, though that seems unlikely in New York.

While I may not get a back porch, I do have a front stoop.  Three steps separate my building from the street and occasionally I'll sit on them, especially if the weather is being charming. Sure - it's a little dirty and there's no screen to keep the bugs out.  And the lady from the dry cleaners is always sitting on the stoop of the next building over, talking loudly on her cell phone.  And often my super will sort out the trash and recycling on the sidewalk in front of me.

But there are evening breezes, and its a good spot for people-watching; a perch where I can observe the goings-on of my neighborhood while still feeling slightly removed from the continual motion on the streets.

Sometimes I feel really urban, sitting out there on the stoop.  And then sometimes I will see a rat dart in and out of the shadows nearby, and I will feel even more urban, though in a decidedly less cool way.

Yes, a porch would be nice. But for now - I'll take this stoop and the city views that come with it.

Baby, It's Cold Outside (again)

“Snow, snow, snow, snow
It won't be long before we'll all be there with snow
I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow”

So sung the cast of the classic movie “White Christmas” in 1954. I love snow, too, though I don’t know if I’d go so far as to bathe in the stuff. I mean, that would kinda hurt. In any case, I was pleased to look out the window just now and see the sky all fuzzy with flakes. After a premature threat of Spring this past weekend, I’m glad to know that Winter hasn’t left me just yet.

Northern Virginia, land of my youth, sees snow several times a year but usually not more than an inch or so at a time. Accumulation of more than 12 inches is deemed a blizzard, as in “Man, do you remember the Blizzard of ’96?” To which I answer, “Yes, I surely do.” The Blizzard of ’96 was indirectly responsible for me getting chased by an angry mob of neighborhood mothers who were furious over a falsely-advertised potluck party, but that is a story for another time.

Snowfall of any amount in NoVa tends to cause widespread panic. The local news before a predicted storm focuses on images of nervous people cleaning out the grocery stores of bread, milk, and toilet paper. Also, Northern Virginians do not know how to drive in snow. So we don’t. At the first word of snow, we begin to cancel school, work, PTA events, club meetings, and what-have-you in an effort to keep off the roads and out of harm’s way. Invariably, however, the predictions of the weathermen prove false and no snow ever arrives. We are then left sitting at home with our bread, milk, toilet paper, and a vague sense of disappointment.

All this to say that I am glad to be living farther north these days, where I see a bit more snow action. And glad to be living in the city, where there is no need to drive to get where I’m going and the local bodega – just two doors down – will take care of me should a bread/milk/toilet paper emergency arise. Still, part of me wishes I could be experiencing the snow in a more undefiled, quieter environment…say, the mountain monastery of Chartreuse? But that is a story for another time. Tune in tomorrow.