White As Snow

It was New Year's Day and we didn't have any big plans for the day. There were streaks of blue on the weather forecast map that meant bands of snow, but I hadn't seen any flakes yet when I went out for my walk around 2:15 in the afternoon.

My husband was on the phone with long lost relatives, catching up, when I walked out the door, pulling my coat on, grabbing my camera and my umbrella (just in case), and turning on my tunes box. 

I bought Mamma Mia and Mamma Mia 2 on DVD in late December, and had so much fun watching them and singing along that I just had to buy the soundtrack albums. So I've been listening to those a LOT. With joy. Absolute JOY. And dancing. Did I mention the dancing?

Isn't it a marvelous world? You can buy music online and download it and listen to it instantly. Who could even imagine such a world back in the 1970s when I first started buying my own music, 45 by 45*? 

As I recall, 45's cost about a buck apiece for much of the time I was buying them; now I pay about $1.29 for most individual songs online, $1.37 with tax (but remember, with a 45, you got a great song on one side and usually a mediocre one on the other side, so that was technically TWO songs). But I digress.

Anyway, I had happy music on my ears and in my soul, and out I went into the cold. As soon as I crossed the road, the wind picked up and it came at me like a freight train. The trees bent and suddenly the air was full of snow. All I could see was white and the trees across the way disappeared.

I looked at the snow and it was coming from all directions at once. I couldn't for the life of me imagine which direction to point my umbrella in to protect myself from it. So I skipped that; took shelter among some trees; carefully got out the camera. Held the camera with my right hand, protected it with my left, got some shots.

The farm field in front of me had a fence around it, and I really enjoyed the way the chaotic snow looked with that orderly fence trying to rein it in. (Don't fence me in!) This is a photo of what I would call a "whiteout." You can see why they call it that. Suddenly, everything is white on white, and you can't see a doggone thing.

As it was the case that I was walking, and only minutes from home, I was in no jeopardy at all. Which may not be the case if you are driving a car when you encounter one of these. Roads can turn nasty quickly; visibility is nil; it's easy to see how those big pile-ups happen.

And then just as quickly, the snow ended and the sun came back out, as though to say - Snow? WHAT snow, Doll Baby? Oh wait, maybe that was my father's voice I just heard.  (WHAT NOISE, Doll Baby? Oh, how I still laugh about that!)

And then I went home to my warm house and my loving husband and lived happily ever after! Our soundtrack song is U2, with White As Snow. As a bonus, I'm adding Clay Hart (yes, we thought he was the bees' knees, back in the day) and the Lawrence Welk singers, with Don't Fence Me In.

*For those who don't know, a 45 is a 45 rpm record. It was also called a single. It's a round vinyl thing with grooves on it (the music lives in those grooves!) that you play on a record player; it is 7 inches, smaller than a full-size 12-inch record album, which was called an LP, short for long play. Yeah, I know. Weird stuff, but that's what music was called back in the dark ages! ;-)

P.S. A thing I always do on New Year's Day is to back up my photo library to two different devices, and then delete the old one off my computer, and start over by creating a new library (the new one for 2025 is called gremlin); I'll do it again on July first. I also backed up my music collection. So yay me; belt AND suspenders girl!