Didn't I say we'd reached our quota for snow this winter? Our quota has just been upped, nay, lifted out of existence. It started snowing and blowing Mondy afternoon, and kept it up, with varying degrees of slushitude but ever-increasing windspeed, all night and into the morning. It wasn't just a snow day for the schools; the university, the government, Metrobus, the banks (the announcement said "all banks" plus a few that didn't have "bank" in their name... is there a Central Bank-Closing Authority?) were all shut down. Highways deemed impassable. A few things opened by noon, but the snow had only recently stopped by that time so the shovelers were still waltzing well into the afternoon. We all slept in, as we sorta figured the night before we'd be able to do.
Bob was scheduled to be at a geology conference at the Geocentre yesterday and today, and since they'd brought in their speakers from Very Far Away and wanted them to get through what they'd come for, Bob shoveled a trench from the door to the sidewalk (half an hour or so) and headed out on foot for Signal Hill at lunchtime. This left me with the kids until who-knows-when in the afternooon. Last time we were stuck in the house all day there were things thrown, including fits, so we did a bit of homework and Jean's violin and headed for Auntie Crae's for Tuesday Session. They were closed, unfortunately, so we kept going east to see if Hava Java was open.
It was, and was the only coffee shop I could see open on Water Street, therefore pretty busy. We met Andrew and sarai (latter visiting for a week) and sat with them, saw other folks we knew too. Eleanor had been angling for a trip to HJ for some time ("for your birthday", we'd promised her) and so was in her glory. They will put enough fresh milk in kids' hot chocolates so as not to burn their mouths, and there are huge cookies with M&M's in them. Cappucino for me, yes. Jean and I played chess (I knocked her on her butt, just for a change) and sarai and Eleanor played schoolyard games and took silly pictures. We headed home at three-ish with the intent to get a few more things done before it was time to go to Jean's violin lesson. It was rapidly sunniering at this point, and with one's back to the wind, not a bad day at all. In that hour or so, Eleanor did her practice and Jean did a page of times tables, and they played outside for a while (how could I deny them?) Coming in, though, took a bit more persuading.
We all went off, my and Jean's violin slung on backs, about 4:45 for a 5:00 lesson, later than I would have liked. The roads were narrow, but not too bad underfoot... until we got to Evelyn's street. It hadn't been plowed at all. Well, that was interesting. I figured, though, that we could just walk in; even though we were late we'd be the only ones there, and so could run over time a bit. Off we all went into the drifts, and discovered the snow about three feet deep all along the road. It had seen quite a bit of foot traffic over the day, and so was packed down to passability in some places; the house is about eight houses in, not far really. Unfortunately the end of her driveway, partially shoveled, was piled loose enough that I got really stuck for a few minutes. We finally tumbled in COVERED in snow (Eleanor stayed outside to play) and melted all over Evelyn's front room for the next hour or so.
Evelyn was surprised to see us, since while we were out she'd left a message not to come unless traveling by snowshoes, but of course while kid-wrangling I don't check for messages, especially if there's something I might need to know. (E-mail I would have gotten. How can I get an e-mail or, better, an rss feed when there's a phone message for me?) So Jean had her lesson. She's well along with Waltz, and aced her trial bars of Bourée, giving her the go-ahead to bash through the rest of it. That will give her no trouble, except maybe for bowing. Evelyn says she's developing what might become perfect pitch - awesome! Since there was time, I had a mini-lesson too: Evelyn checked and moved my tapes that had become inaccurate, listened to Minuet 1 and my latest, Gavotte from "Mignon", and pinpointed some practice points for me on the latter. We picked up supper at Sobey's, met Bob who was somehow home in between conference and a gym date, had supper, and shooed the girls to bed.
Gavotte from "Mignon" is a beast, at least so far. It uses the entire chromatic scale - all sharps, flats, and naturals - on the top two strings and a few lower notes for good measure; trills; a convoluted repeating form; and pizzicato at the end, just for fun. There's a modulated section in the middle that I can still only play at half speed. I'm feeling more and more like playing these days, though, so improvement will come. Fiddlewise, I'm also working on finding out what the Auntie Crae Band plays regularly (they don't announce the tunes), digging up the music, and learning it. The Session Dot Org is proving really helpful. I sleuthed out "The Little Beggarman" recently and am learning that (took me ages to figure out that I was not imagining it, it did indeed have words, and then to pair the tune up with "Me Old Ragadoo"). Stan occasionally at Auntie Crae's but more often at Folk Night plays "O'Carolan's Concerto" which I also found on the web and is just gorgeous, so that is going on the learn-list as well. (Quick off-track wandering: there's a book by the same name that looks quite good.) Lastly, Christina Smith's "Snow Shoveler's Waltz" (on August Gale, sheet music in an old SJFAC Broadside), in honor of the day.