My fault

I think the snow you see outside your window this morning – our first really decent snowfall in two years, probably – could be my fault.

It's on me...

 The other day, when I was packing up our Christmas stuff, I replaced our New Year's garden flag with a flag that has a giant snowflake on it.

It's supposed to be our winter garden flag, since our garden flags are intended to be seasonal. But Kim believes that I actually brought on this snowfall by hanging this particular flag. Everything is an omen, you see. Don't ever talk about how good the car is behaving; don't ever mention that we haven't caught the flu – or Covid – in two years; don't say how smart we were to cut down our leaning red oak tree when five other trees are still standing within striking distance of our house.

Kim, a native-born Lexingtonian, is not a fan of winter. I can't say that I blame her. I'm a native-born Pennsylvanian, and while I grew up loving to play in the snow, that feeling mostly disappeared when I got older and had to drive in the stuff.

I remember one winter when I was covering sports for The Quakertown Free Press. One of our local high school basketball teams qualified for the state playoffs, which happened to be played in the Palestra at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The Palestra was only an hour away, but it started snowing on the way down to Philly, it snowed during the entire game that I was covering, and it snowed on the drive back home. At night. I've never been a big fan of winter after that decidedly uncomfortable experience.

Anyway, I can't say for sure that I actually brought on this snowfall. It's been in the forecast for days, but Kim was listening to the voice in her other ear that was telling her it was all a joke and that we really weren't going to get snow. I mean, the forecasters had pretty much gotten it wrong the past two years. I, for one, was hoping she was right.

But, you know, there was that snowflake garden flag taunting us...

Still, we made our preparations. We did our grocery shopping yesterday instead of today, and our supplies appear be in good shape. We can hunker down, stream a movie or two, watch the NFL playoffs, finish off the pizza we brought home yesterday from Thomasville.

Just as long as the power holds out. Ice and sleet are in the forecast for later today. Yikes.

I wonder if it's too late to hang the hummingbird-and-honeysuckle garden flag?