Stockman’s, one of the best department stores ever. Helsinki.

Home from work and the gym. Enjoying the snow with Anderson. Just some random memories and photos about snow.

I was in NYC once when there was a smaller snowstorm and it was amazing…the city all quieted down, red and green and gold of traffic lights opaque in the snow, like Christmas tree lights trying to shine through that cottony snow stuff we decorated with once. Some restaurants were open, crowded, noisy, happy; people in NYC are generally much more neighborly than in your normal everyday city and especially so after an ‘event’ of the good or bad kind.

A couple of Decembers ago I was in Helsinki during some serious snow days. It was cold and white and cheerful with a fabulous department store of shiny tasty pretty odd smart wooly things very near my hotel. Restaurants had reindeer roasts and a dance festival kept the indoors cozily eclectic. The problem was the slippery slidey packed snow on every surface preventing me from striding forth like the descendant of Vikings instead of creeping every so carefully forward like a little old lady from New Mexico afraid of some ordinary snow.

And my Minnesota snow. Well that’s a book not a paragraph. I do miss weather. I know I keep saying that and no one in Koochiching, Itasca or Beltrami counties in up north Minnesota thinks I really mean it. But I do. Even if…The last time I lived in Minneapolis I was in the graduate program at Augsburg College and working at various jobs, including the Salvation Army where we checked in homeless people each evening to keep them from freezing to death.

I lived on the 8^th floor with our parking lot across the street. I had a wretched old rusted-out vehicle and a choice each evening if I wanted my car to start in the morning. Since there was no available plug-in for a battery warmer I could remove the battery and take it in with me which was beyond my mechanical abilities. Or I could get up in the middle of the night, put on some weighty woolens, call Max the best dog ever and we’d head across the street, get in and start that miserable wreck and the two of us would enjoy each other’s company for approximately half an hour as the engine gradually warmed.

So why is it I want to be in NYC tonight? Weather, like geography, is exciting. And each kind has its mood and encourages particular activities…cuddling, snacking, weather-window-watching, netflixing, making love, planning crimes…what am I forgetting?  Thinking of Cathy and Bernard and Jessica in the CITY and how is it in Dover Tom?

It’s nice here in Albuquerque, not too cold and it will be SUNNY tomorrow. Again. And Again. And Again.

Road heading up to the “old place”. Minnesota.

Main Street, My Home Town, Northome MN.

Winter winter winter.

Lavender Helsinki…Not sure why my camera did that but it’s quite lovely I think.