Through the drifts the snowy cliffs did send a dismal sheen

I LOVE a good dismal sheen on the cliffs of Black River Bay, and ladies and gentlemen...and Daddy...we are getting one! Because guess what: IT'S SNOWING!!!

Thick and fast it comes at last, and more and more and more!

They tell me it will continue through tomorrow. Let's pray it does. I love it so much I can't stand it! The dogs and I walked downtown, and the big brick Presbyterian Church and the little white library beside it were dramatic through the snow. The orange streetlights and the little white ones on the gazebo at the river and the lit-up windows of houses with lace curtains looked like illustrations from books my father read during the winters of my childhood. The big red house at the end of our block had its pellet stove going, and the whole street smells like Christmas.

I wish I had red bows for the dog's collars and one of my grandma's heavy quilts with the World War II wool blankets in the center. She was a crochet artist, not a quilter, so hers were just big squares of material from old dresses and work shirts, stitched together for warmth, not beauty. If I had one now, I'd wrap up in it on the couch and call the dogs over to sit on either side of me. I'd read Joseph Mitchell's New York essays and drink Earl Grey and look at the snow falling on the skylight.

I don't, though. But I have a big red and blue quilt made by my Army friend, Michelle, for another birthday. She is a quilt artist, so it's lovely. I'll wrap up in it, then, and hold the dogs and read about the city until I can't stand it anymore and have to put my gnome boots back on to go walking up and down our road with my crooked-toothed companions in the snow, the snow, the snow!!