The house was packed for last night's gig, which was not what I expected during a blizzard warning. People must be pretty desperate to get out of the house. So far, however, this blizzard is doing next to nothing: merely a light breeze and a few snow showers. I suppose it will get lively eventually.

It was nice to get out of the house. We left the boy at home, with instructions to man the woodstove and babysit the housepets in case we ended up in a snowbank for the night. But Tina the Little Subaru chugged obstinately up and down the hills, and here we are: waiting for the blizzard, which might as well arrive now that we have nowhere else to go.

It better not arrive this coming week, when I have to drive all over Massachusetts and Vermont and upstate New York and Connecticut on the boy's February vacation college tour. Blah.

"Katy was a beautiful red crawler tractor. She was very big and very strong and she could do a lot of things."

[My all-time favorite feminist opening line, from Virginia Lee Burton's 1943 picture book. And so appropriate to the season.]