The Snow Is Melting ... Again

Here in Hudson, Ohio, yesterday's snow is disappearing fairly quickly--nothing like above-freezing temperatures and some sunlight to speed the process.

We've had snow here the past couple of days, but, like most snow-in-April, it won't last very long. It's almost as if it somehow knows it should not even be here--like an ex-boyfriend who shows
 up at his ex's wedding. Stays a little bit. Departs.

Yesterday, though, it was depressing. Not only are we house-bound (and you know why), but the skies were dark all day, and clumps of snow were perched atop our new magnolia blossoms like whipped cream on a fancy pink drink.

from our bedroom window

But as I look outside right now (about 8:45 a.m.), see that the whipped cream on that pink-magnolia drink has disappeared, consumed by Old Sol, and I can almost see the snow melting in the yard, on the sidewalk.

Ah, the wee pleasures of quarantine!

Because of the gloom and the cold and the snow yesterday, I was not in exactly the most sanguine of moods. (More of a sanguinary mood!) I had to force myself to get up at my wonted time (6 a.m. these day), force myself to clean up, dress, do my chores (unload the dishwasher, etc.), and settle in for my morning's work, which yesterday included finishing a book I'm reviewing for Kirkus Reviews, then writing and filing the review online.

This was an odd one for me--not the book. I review general nonfiction for Kirkus (history, memoir, etc.) and have been doing so for twenty-one years. But yesterday I finished my first book in .pdf form, a text I read on my iPad. Apparently, the magazine is going to be doing this from now on--no more ARC editions (Advanced Reading Copies), pre-publication paperbacks that I've been reviewing since I began in March 1999.

And I actually liked it. Two principal reasons: (1) I could enlarge the text, and the first time I did so, my aging eyes sighed in unison in gratitude; (2) later, when I was writing the review on my laptop in my study, I could quickly check quotations and spellings by doing a simple search in the Adobe Acrobat program.

So ... all of that improved my mood--even though the snow was continuing, the sun was hiding.

Later, in the afternoon, I began reading Ian McEwan's 1998 novel, Amsterdam, and, as usual, he limed me on the first page.

(Okay, limed? I love that word--learned it from the Bard. It derives from the old practice of catching birds to eat by putting a lime mixture on branches they like; the substance catches them--they cannot fly. So ... if you're limed, it means you're caught. Here's an example from Much Ado About Nothing. Some of the characters have planned to trick both Benedick and Beatrice, who love each other but won't admit it--not even to themselves--and as the conspiracy is in progress,  Ursula, one of the servants, says: She's limed, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam. (3.1)).

But it's hard to feel too sorry for myself for too long--even on a mid-April snowy, gloomy day while under quarantine: We have food, shelter, services, safety.

Each other.