Chapter 7 ~ Our first Winter Storm

Okay so I knew that it snowed here, and I knew it got cold here.  But we just got our first snowfall of the season, and it is way beyond being able to wear a cute jacket and a matching hat and scarf.  The weather channel was calling it a Nor'easter (whatever that means) and it dumped three feet of snow in one day.  December 5, 2007.  It is a day I will never forget.  When the first snowflakes started to fall I happily sat by the window watching.  Then after about a foot of snow had fallen, I put some boots on and went outside and walked around in it.  They were dressy black boots with a chunky heel that I used to wear to work, I didn't have any snow boots, I hadn't ever needed them in Arizona and we hadn't gotten around to buying any here.  Since I obviously didn't own the proper gear for playing in the snow I came inside and continued watching through the window.  When about two feet of snow had fallen I was starting to imagine having to dig our car out of the snow.  Then after waking up the next morning to see even more snow had fallen, only a small sliver of the top of the window was still showing, I wondered if I would even be able to get my little Arizona car to start once it was finally uncovered.  It was a little Pontiac sunfire, and it was my first car, the car I had bought when I was starting college.  At the time I had picked it because it was in my price range and it was cute, but after paying for a lot of repairs I learned that if I had done a any research I would have found it on the Consumer Reports 'used cars to avoid' list.  Based on it's past performance, being burried under all of this snow didn't seem to be anything it would recover from. 

The good news, Sam finally got a few days off from school.  It was two days before our street was plowed enough that we were able to walk outside and try to uncover our car. The owner had aleady shoveled the walkway up to the front door, and now the piles of snow on both sides were as tall as my waist.  We walked into the street, since it had been plowed, that was the only side of the car that was reachable.  Unfortunately though when the plow came by clearing the street, it piled up more snow on this side of the car, so that the snow drift completlt covered it.  We spent the day 'digging out' as the locals call it.  We took turns shoveling (with a shovel we borrowed from the owners upstairs-were we supposed to buy one of these?) while the other one stayed inside with Rachel.  All of our neighbors were out doing the same thing.  It was funny that this was the first time we had even seen many of them, and here they all were, all in the front yards saying "hello" to one another like some Norman Rockwell painting.  Funny, but nice.

Just when we had shoveled enough that it felt like we were making progress, I could actually see the side of the car now, I saw the snow plow starting to come down our street.  At first I was excited, when you are scooping snow away one shovel at a time, a giant snow plow appears to be your friend.  Only, as I watched it come down the street I could see that since there was still a lot of snow on the ground, this final layer of snow was getting pushed up onto the side of the road once again.  As it got closer, I stepped out of the street and watched it as it drove by, pushing another layer of snow up against the side of our car.  Back to square one.  It took a lot more shoveling, and many breaks for hot chocolate, before we had cleared enough that we could get our car out. 

After all that work, we decided to celebrate by going for a drive, even though we had no where we needed to go.  Once we hit the main road, about four blocks away, we were surprised to see black asphault.  Apparently these main roads were plowed a lot more frequently, and the world didn't stop for three days like I had assumed (typical naive west-coaster) just from the view from my living room window. 

On Monday morning I offered to give Sam a ride to school so he wouldn't have to trudge through the snow and wait for buses that were sure to be delayed.  Shortly after getting on the freeway in Quincy, we passed the brightly colored gas tank that had become a familiar landmark, and I looked off to the right.  At this spot the road is right next to the water and you can look out and see the ocean.  Only I had to do a double-take, because this time when I looked right, all I saw was a blanket of snow.  What? Where is the ocean?   This is the right spot?...isn't it?  Apparently the temperature had gotten so cold that the top layer of water had frozen, and then all the snow that fell just piled right on top.  If you didn't know that you were supposed to be able to see water there, you wouldn't have thought there was anything abnormal.  But knowing this, made me feel like I was in Antartica!   I later had time to think about it and realized that because Boston is pretty much a bay, the water is more stagnant there, and pretty shallow right there by the coast, so just because it froze right there didn't mean a whole lot.  But I still don't like the sound of it.  If I was living in a place where the ocean freezes over, I might need to buy a bigger jacket. 

Good-bye Tigger Jacket from The Disney Store and hello super-insulated, calf-length, parka from Lands End. 

(ocean freezing over could have happened in January)

Chapter 6 - First holiday away from home

We moved into our new apartment on November 1st.  Soon after that came Thanksgiving.  Our first major holiday away from home.  Sam had so many tests since the semester was nearing the end, and since they only give two days off of school it wasn't enough to make a cross-country trip back to Arizona to spend it with family.  I was dreading having to make everything myself, and was already missing my moms homemade rolls.  Thankfully we weren't the only students in the same predicament.  After asking around, Chris and Dave had found there were a few other student couples in Quincy that were also from the west coast that were going to be stuck here as well.  Dave and Christine decided to host a potluck Thanksgiving Dinner at their place.  They invited two other couples, Kim and Chris, and Josh and Lindy.  Kim and Chris were from Utah, Chris was going to school to be an architect.  Josh was from New Jersey and Lindy was from Utah, Josh was in Med school at BU, and Lindy was majoring in accounting at UMASS. 

With so many of us contributing to dinner we realized that we wouldn't have to cook all day long and decided to plan a group trip down to Plymouth during the day.  It was unbelievable that on Thanksgiving Day I was taking a tour of a replica of the Mayflower, and looking at "The" Plymouth Rock (which is much smaller than I had imagined by the way).  I couldn't wait to call my family and tell them, and hopefully hear jealousy in their voices.  I was relieved when this thought came to mind, because it meant that maybe I wouldn't get homesick when I called and start to cry when I realized I was the only one not there.

Somehow, between the eight of us, we managed to put together a full table of food, all delicious--which was a pleasant surprise to all of us.  At the beginning of the day everyone wished they could have been at home, but I think by the end we were content with our day, and happy that we had avoided ten-hour, round-trip flights, all for just a one hour dinner with family.  Not only that, but we had started a new tradition.  All of us clicked.  It is so hard to find couples that both you and your husband get along with.  But our whole group was perfect, everyone got along, and had such a fun time together, Hopefully, this was the start of a new Thanksgiving tradition.

Unfortunately, studying called and the festivities were broken up so they guys could get home to study.