irritation
Since the snow began in Casper, on April 8, 2013, we have had around 32 inches of snow, which, of course, varies depending on where you are in town. Since the storms took place over a number of days, some of it melted in between storms. Now if you happen to live on the mountain…like my friend Becky and her husband, Darren, your world looks…just a bit different than the rest of town. According to Becky, they have had between 48 and 54 inches…maybe more, since the wind has been blowing it around up there.
All the kids in town expected to have a snow day with the first storm, so when morning arrived, along with what most of us assumed was enough snow to call school off, and school was still on, the kids were justifiably annoyed. The comments on Facebook flew back and forth expressing their irritation. At that point, I mentioned to my grandkids that they should have watched the movie, “Snow Day” because it would explain to them, the best way to arrange a Snow Day. Well, I don’t think they took my advise, but it would seem that they found a way to get that Snow Day after all…and it didn’t involve hijacking a snow plow.
April, 2013, has decided to be like the Spring storms I remember as a kid. We used to get the kind of snow that meant that cars didn’t get around in it. People who really needed to get out had to use a snowmobile. This April storm was going to rival those storms, and the second round of the April, 2013 storm hit close enough to the first round that the snow hadn’t completely melted. That created enough problems with the roads to bring the words that every school aged child wants to hear…Snow Day. Then begins the reality of the Snow Day, because while the weather is too rough to go to school, for some reason, it is not so bad that the kids…and any parents who were able to get the snow day too…can’t get out there and play. Other kids, like my grandson, Caalab found themselves literally waist deep in drifts of snow with a shovel at not only their house, but those of the neighbors, as well.
At that point, the best mode of transportation became the sled powered by kids. After all what is a Snow Day for if not to get out a play in the snow. Suddenly kids who normally had to be pryed out of bed, jumped out of bed and could hardly wait until 
breakfast was over, so they couyld get out in the snow. Of course, there are adults, like Darren, who probably felt a little bit differently about the type of play they had, and who had to use a much stronger mode of transportation…the truck with a plow. Digging out of the ton of snow on the mountain, is a lot of work, but then I suppose that the chocolate chip cherry cookies Becky made today, would help to motivate Darren in his work.
My grandchildren have gotten to the age where teasing their grandma is considered a sport. Words spoken in irritation…provided they were not aimed at that grandchild…are suddenly the funniest thing they have ever heard. They love to bring up past irritated sayings and then ask me to repeat the saying…hopefully using the same tone I used at the time they first heard the remark. The problem is that often what struck them as funny is something I gave very little thought to, and therefore barely recall saying, much less the proper tone to use in the repeat performance. Consequently, they ask me to try again using the right tone, and when I don’t know the right tone, they try to re-create the tone for me, so I can then repeat it for them, so they can laugh about it. Mostly, they end up laughing at my feeble attempts to re-create the tone to match their tone.
It’s a good thing that I’m a good sport too, because anything is fair game here. A broken heel and the consequent limping walk…along with the ensuing irritated grumbling, makes for the perfect pick on Grandma item. As does my irritation at the radio speakers in my car when they were going out, and the sound would “get really low, and then BLAST out at you!” And, let’s not forget that my grandsons are now all taller than me, so they think it is pretty funny to manhandle Grandma, because she isn’t strong enough to push them out of the way…much less get away from them. I have been relegated to the basement, as it were, in that all three of the boys are taller, so I have become Little Grandma, which takes me back some to when all of my cousins and I called my great grandmother, Little Great Grandma, a name she didn’t seem to mind either, and now I understand why she didn’t.
There is just something about having your grandchildren lovingly teasing you that has a pleasure all it’s own. You realize that while your children, at this age, were totally embarrassed at the un-coolness of their parents, your grandchildren have no such inhibitions where you are concerned. Somehow in your old age…not that I’m old, mind you…but somewhere in what seems to your grandchildren to be your old age, you have somehow managed to retain or maybe recover your coolness!! And the truly amazing thing is that all you had to do to achieve such a great accomplishment was say something silly in the middle of an argument like, “We are sooooooo done here!”
