There is snow upon the hilltops of Mt. Hamilton, CA. Views from my work high up here will be uploaded into this profile at home later on tonight. The weather has been quite cold a few days now and rain has been sporadic the whole week. The snow provides my eye candy relief from working too hard.
At least my gray colored Mustang has a nice bath to rinse off the dirt and grime. This saves me money instead of spending some 20.00USD at the local car wash and reduces the damages of my tires from being dragged along the conveyor belt and my paint from being chipped by high powered spraying and drying.
Snow up on the eastern hills of the Bay Area was a rare event today. Last month was the first snow for this time of the year. So today everyone at work had a second chance of looking out the window and watching the snow falling around our building for about three minutes starting around 4:50PM.
At 05:00PM I took some outdoor snapshots of flowers, plants and the general surrounding area near our building. As I drove home on my usual route, I noticed that there was no other snow in sight except for where I work! To me this means something out of the ordinary because it’s almost like we are reminded there is beauty in the simple snowballs that fell on the ground today. The sizes are quite round and as large as, say, one’s pinkie toe nail.
During my childhood my family and I lived in Norfolk, Virginia where Paw was stationed. That is snow country and every winter we would play in the snow. I do not remember much from those days but try to imagine I was once there with the old photos that Paw took of the family.
Paw was the photographer in the family during those days and owed a Canon camera with manual focusing. That camera no longer works and I have inherited Paws passion to take photos recently with my new digital Canon Power Shot A610 that was bought on 11-18-2005 at Moffett Field. This camera has all the features a novice photographer like me could have, including the ability to take movies.
Snow and cold temperature have been my bane during my childhood. I would get colds every winter and take grape flavored cough medicine administered with love by Maw. Trips to the doctors and antibiotics were all too familiar as I fought bouts of ear, nose and throat infections. I hated going to the doctor. I hated getting sick all the time.
The worse was having my tonsils and adenoids removed. I remembered crying at home prior to going to the doctor as I hid underneath what is now an antique Singer sewing machine with still moving parts and wooden legs. Maw uses this Singer to this day.
My hysterical crying continued at the lobby hospital when a nice lady tried to distract me by having me read whatever she held up. I couldn’t read then.
I starved later on the night prior to surgery because this blond girl who shared my hospital room convinced me not to eat much of my dinner.
I still remembered being quite afraid as I looked up into the white covered faces of what seemed about a dozen people looking down at me. I waited on the operating table for the gas to put me to sleep and was told to inhale deeply. I complied still fearfully as I fought the sleepiness by trying to keep my heavy eyelids open. I lost the battle to stay conscious.
The sore throat was annoying as I recovered a few days in the hospital all the while looking for Maw. Ice cream was cold and soothing to the throat and reminded me of snow. I missed the snow and wanted to go home.
But what I remember most was the fun I had playing in the snow. Both Brat and I would get stuffed into these polyester filled jackets, wear cotton lined gloves, rubber shoes and itchy acrylic, ski-like masks that only allowed the eyes to peer out from beneath to a winter wonderland outside. We couldn’t move much with the bundled tightness of our snow outfits.
Then both us kids headed out and played in the snow. We didn’t know how to make a snowman. We saw two teenagers next door to us finishing off the head of their snowman. But the only thing Brat and I accomplished was piling up mounds of snow in the same place and never truly got anywhere. We were disappointed that our Frosty the Snowman never came to life.
Snow brings out the child in us. We play and frolic among the white powdery crunch underneath us and eat the stuff falling from the sky. Coldness is replaced by warm chocolate milk sprinkled with toasted marshmallows floating on the top as we hold our mugs to our noses. Snow is formed from the quick freezing temperatures of raindrops falling from the clouds above towards earth below.
The times of witnessing these rare events of snow in a climate meant for warm weather and sunny days make me wonder if the earth is really cooling off instead going through this global warming due to depletion of the ozone layer of earth’s atmosphere. I don’t know if the earth is tilting in a different direction that makes for these snowy days either. Whatever allows the hilltops to become covered with snow, I am still humbled knowing that all is well in its own sweet, snowy beauty.
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Friday March 3, 2006 – 12:28pm (PST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments