“All the snow has turned to water…

Christmas days have come and gone.” A John Prine song that is echoing in my brain.

All that white stuff that we had dumped on us during the two-week-long Arctic Blast has now been followed by a Global Warming preview with melted snow that has swollen the rivers and over-run the ponds and lakes and is flooding all the low lying areas. As we used to say down home, “Roll up your pants, it’s too late to save your socks.”

Portland is the only place I ever lived where weather is considered news. I mean news news. Twenty-four/seven news. On-every-channel news. Today we have every road closure (there are many), the snow depth on the mountain, the height of every river and stream below, and the condition of every cloud in the sky.

My granddaughter and I are warm and cozy inside, safe from the elements, eating leftover pizza and playing with Christmas toys. Part of the clan gathered yesterday to greet the New Year with a cutthroat game of Trivial Pursuit and plenty of pizza. The 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle is almost finished. I’m out of egg nog. It is time for the holidays to be over.

The decorations will stay up until Epiphany which just happens to be the day I go back to work. I will take the gifts I wasn’t able to deliver earlier, and call them Twelfth Night presents. I am ready for the newness of Ought Nine.