Digging Christmas Eve

On this Christmas Eve, I spent two hours digging out our cars.

We live on the side of a wickedly steep hill. In the snow, the incline is impossible for cars, but great for sleds, plastic disks and cookie sheets. Did I mention kids?

In our standard clever strategic move in these situations, before last week’s storm we shifted the cars from the garage to the bottom of the hill.

For the past week my trusty old RAV4 has been tethered under a big fir whose bent branches are laden with ice.

Potential disaster. A block from the RAV's moorage an entire tree toppled onto a house.

So I hacked out a place with no threatening limbs and backed the RAV into it as far as the snow bank would allow.

Next I cut a path to the snow bank that had surrounded and buried the Accord, our vehicle of choice because of its studded snow tires.

Until my excavation, it was little more than a snow drift with rear-view mirrors.

I did most of my digging and hacking in the thaw. Shoveling snow was like hewing and hoisting concrete blocks. I worked chunk by sodden chunk with a small, short-shanked, big-handled, squared-off sod-cutter.

As I labored and sweated (I quickly went from four layers to two) the warming nibbled at the white of this oddly isolating and weirdest of Christmas Eves.

As I write in the darkening day, a dread freezing rain pocks the snow, but at least our cars have been liberated from their snowy tombs.

But now we have no place we want to go.

Here’s to staying home and warm, surrounded with joy and good cheer.

Merry Christmas everyone!

The day after the storm

Today, squealing neighborhood children slide and screamed down our ice-crusted street, one of Portland’s steepest.

At the bottom of the glazed skid, vigilant parents stomped away the cold between careening downhill runs. Then, clusters of children spinning their way, they stood poised to hurl themselves between kids and cars, walls and the neighbor’s looming, foot-of-the-hill garage.

From my kitchen window, I briefly considered my liability, escape clauses in my insurance policy and vulnerability to litigation.

Winter exposure.

Among my neighbors are parent/attorneys.

Many parent/attorneys. Good neighbors. Nice people.

The laughter of their children — of all the children — brushed aside my worry.

Later, transporting mandarin rinds and banana peels to our compost bin, I discovered Sunday’s storm had spread a cloth over the patio table. Snow padded our mesh metal chairs with frosted white cushions.

A summer setting in December. A trick in time.