Flashing Orange Lights

An ex-math teacher friend said 3-3-09 was "Square Root Day" and encouraged me to make it special, since the rare day won't happen again until 4-4-16. I don�t know that it was *special* but it sure is nice to be on a much-needed, well-timed, week-long break from the grad school bubble! Who can complain about a chance to catch up on non-academic reading? Hello Twilight series�it�s time to pick up where I left you in January! In addition to Stephanie Meyer, I finally got a book by Lisa See, whose writing I�ve been really curious about for a while.

I can't help but see irony in having a snow storm over Spring Break. It�s OK--I�m ready for springtime, but it makes me happy that we finally got one decent snowfall this winter. Better yet, I didn�t have to be out driving in it. Instead, I enjoyed watching the pretty snowstorm while drinking Mexican-style hot chocolate in the comfort of my parents� house.

I felt nostalgic for the winters of my childhood the other night as snow fell and sleet pelted my windows, and I lay in my bed, trying to fall asleep in my old bedroom at my parents� house. As the snow plows made their rounds in the neighborhood in the middle of the night, their scraping sound kept me awake, just like it used to awaken me at night when I was little. And the plow trucks' flashing orange lights illuminated my darkened bedroom, just as they did when I was little.

There�s something I love about seeing the flashing orange lights on snow plows at night. It�s strangely comforting, and makes me kind of nostalgic. I think it reminds me of when I was a little girl who went to bed not having done her homework just for once, b/c I was anxiously awaiting a snowstorm. I�d go to bed hoping that against all odds, we�d have a snow day, even when the snow hadn�t begun falling by bedtime. Seeing the snow plows� flashing lights brighten up my room through my curtains before daybreak was like an affirmation that yes, it had, indeed, snowed, and school really was going to be closed.

I used to love how, sometimes, I�d wake up on snow days and already know before looking outside that it had snowed. There's an unusual brightness that reflects in through the windows on snowy days, and it's different from a sunny day�s brilliance. Sometimes it's the first thing that tells you there�s fluffy white stuff on the ground. For me, snow days always meant sledding, building snowmen, and having snowball fights with my neighborhood friends...and then coming back inside to dry off and warm up with a cup of hot cocoa. There was usually either a bowl of tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches waiting, or sometimes there was the yummy chili my mom used to make on snowy days.

I'm wiser now. Seeing snow plow trucks nowadays just means that the roads will be cleared and that I probably WILL still have to go to school or work despite winter weather. But the rare snow days I DO get now still mean grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Sometimes it also means hot cocoa with a splash of Bailey�s. Grown-up snow days still hold magic because, maybe, in a way, you�re never too old for those flashing orange lights.