If you’ve ever seen “Monsters, Inc.,” do you remember how Mike Wazowski gets cut out of the Monsters, Inc. commercial by the company logo and out of the magazine cover by the bar code? You think he’s going to be crushed. "I can't believe it," he says with wide eyes; but then he finishes rapturously: "I'm on TV!" Not crushed. Elated.
Lily has been very interested in snow this winter. For one thing, it’s in almost all of her Christmas books. For pajama day at preschool, they read the Polar Express, built a train car out of cardboard boxes, drank hot chocolate, and all found silver bells in their cubbies after lunch. Yet she came home hanging her head and saying that “it wasn’t like she expected it to be.” “Why?” I asked. “No snow,” she replied. Then things got worse when she heard about Michigan. One of her classmates moved there at the end of the semester, and her teacher and another friend both traveled there to see family over the holidays. They returned with stories of sledding, winter sports, and building snowmen as tall as people. Now, of course, Lily wants to go to Michigan. I keep telling her that we don’t know anyone in Michigan and don’t have a reason to go there, but she keeps asking. She also keeps asking “When will it snow in Austin, Texas?” She’s learned the meaning of the word “rarely,” because that is usually my answer, but she refuses to accept it. The fact that it happens rarely doesn’t mean that it can’t happen tomorrow, right?
Last Friday, though, there was a chance of sleet or wintery mix in the forecast. I did not tell her about it so as not to get her hopes up. Matt and I could hear the sleet coming down before we went to bed Thursday night, and Friday morning when we woke up, the city - and our neighborhood- were covered in a thin layer of ice - with maybe, just maybe, a light dusting of snow on top. Austinites don’t drive on ice, so school, of course, was cancelled, and Lily was set for her first ever “snow day.” Even Matt stayed home a few hours to let the roads thaw.
He’s so small that “Frosty the Snowman” doesn’t seem to work for
him. Who could find a magic hat that tiny? I think he needs something
more like that weird Hobbit song Leonard Nimoy did: “It’s Corin!
(Corin!) Corin Snowman. Less than one foot tall...”
As though ice and a tiny snowman weren’t enough, wintery mix was forecast again for today. Again, I did not tell her ahead of time, but the buzz reached her at school, and she was giddy with anticipation. I tried to dampen her expectations a little, and indeed, today’s weather was less impressive looking than Friday’s with less ice and no hint of snow as of the morning. Nevertheless, at about 2pm, I let the dogs out and, believe it or not, it was snowing... sort of. Not having grown up around snow, I don’t have a good snow vocabulary, but I think that this was the equivalent of a light snow drizzle, falling not in flakes but in tiny balls. At first, I thought it was small hail, but if you caught some in your hand and put it between your finger tips, it would crush like snow, not ice. Matt says this is called “nurdling.” It was so sparse, though, that it seemed as though someone were walking across the sky carrying a bag with one tiny hole in it, from which minuscule styrofoam balls were trickling.
Nonetheless, Lily was thrilled. It took us so long to get upstairs and get coats and shoes on that I was worried we would miss it, but luckily, we made it out for a few minutes of play time, though there was not much to play with. The best you could do was try to catch a bit in your hand or on your tongue. The whole event lasted for maybe ten minutes, but that was long enough for a few pictures and an excited phone call to Dad in which her shout of “It’s snowing in Austin, Texas!” could apparently be heard by a person fifteen feet away from his phone at work. Ah, kids... and one-eyed green monsters... you just can’t keep ‘em down.
Lily has been very interested in snow this winter. For one thing, it’s in almost all of her Christmas books. For pajama day at preschool, they read the Polar Express, built a train car out of cardboard boxes, drank hot chocolate, and all found silver bells in their cubbies after lunch. Yet she came home hanging her head and saying that “it wasn’t like she expected it to be.” “Why?” I asked. “No snow,” she replied. Then things got worse when she heard about Michigan. One of her classmates moved there at the end of the semester, and her teacher and another friend both traveled there to see family over the holidays. They returned with stories of sledding, winter sports, and building snowmen as tall as people. Now, of course, Lily wants to go to Michigan. I keep telling her that we don’t know anyone in Michigan and don’t have a reason to go there, but she keeps asking. She also keeps asking “When will it snow in Austin, Texas?” She’s learned the meaning of the word “rarely,” because that is usually my answer, but she refuses to accept it. The fact that it happens rarely doesn’t mean that it can’t happen tomorrow, right?
Last Friday, though, there was a chance of sleet or wintery mix in the forecast. I did not tell her about it so as not to get her hopes up. Matt and I could hear the sleet coming down before we went to bed Thursday night, and Friday morning when we woke up, the city - and our neighborhood- were covered in a thin layer of ice - with maybe, just maybe, a light dusting of snow on top. Austinites don’t drive on ice, so school, of course, was cancelled, and Lily was set for her first ever “snow day.” Even Matt stayed home a few hours to let the roads thaw.
Like Mike Wazowski behind the corporate logo, you might think that Lily would be disappointed in the sort of snow that only looks like powdered sugar sprinkled on a thin glaze. But she bounded out of bed and wanted to build a snowman. I told her that there wasn’t enough for that, but Matt, engineer that he is, took her outside and scraped enough together for a six-inch mini man that Lily named Corin... possibly in tribute to the fact that the real Corin slipped on the ice on the porch and smacked his head. As it was supposed to be above freezing by noon, I knew that snow-Corin wouldn’t last, so we scooped him up and stuck him in our freezer. The deal is that he can stay until Lily’s birthday, and then we’ll let him melt.
As though ice and a tiny snowman weren’t enough, wintery mix was forecast again for today. Again, I did not tell her ahead of time, but the buzz reached her at school, and she was giddy with anticipation. I tried to dampen her expectations a little, and indeed, today’s weather was less impressive looking than Friday’s with less ice and no hint of snow as of the morning. Nevertheless, at about 2pm, I let the dogs out and, believe it or not, it was snowing... sort of. Not having grown up around snow, I don’t have a good snow vocabulary, but I think that this was the equivalent of a light snow drizzle, falling not in flakes but in tiny balls. At first, I thought it was small hail, but if you caught some in your hand and put it between your finger tips, it would crush like snow, not ice. Matt says this is called “nurdling.” It was so sparse, though, that it seemed as though someone were walking across the sky carrying a bag with one tiny hole in it, from which minuscule styrofoam balls were trickling.
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| "nurdle" on ice glaze on a citrus leaf |
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| Note the dachshund on the left as excited as Lily |
Nonetheless, Lily was thrilled. It took us so long to get upstairs and get coats and shoes on that I was worried we would miss it, but luckily, we made it out for a few minutes of play time, though there was not much to play with. The best you could do was try to catch a bit in your hand or on your tongue. The whole event lasted for maybe ten minutes, but that was long enough for a few pictures and an excited phone call to Dad in which her shout of “It’s snowing in Austin, Texas!” could apparently be heard by a person fifteen feet away from his phone at work. Ah, kids... and one-eyed green monsters... you just can’t keep ‘em down.
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| "I can't believe it..." |
The snow nurdles are technically known as "graupel" in meteorologist-speak.
ReplyDeleteLida