the weather

April 25, 2002

Today's Reading
Red Poppies by Alai, Trans-Himalaya by Sven Hedin

This Year's Reading
2002 Book List

Today's Starting Pitcher
Pedro Martinez
Mucho Punchados!
(Day game, listened to it on the Internet while I worked.)

The weather. The Merrimack Valley has its own weather. I've known that since I moved here decades ago. Still it surprises me. I kept hearing the weather dudes on various channels predicting that it would rain in Boston and snow in the Merrimack Valley tonight. They don't often make specific Merrimack Valley predictions. Usually they notice we got more of whatever it was (wind, snow, floods, plagues of locusts) after we've gotten it. So there I am driving home from Cambridge after my meeting in pelting rain. As I go north the rain becomes more sleet-like. When I get to Wilmington it's definitely snowing. When I get to Andover it's whiteout conditions. I can't see. Nobody else can either but we're all driving. We're driving like little old ladies. No hot dogs in SUVs tonight. Maybe they realize they could spinout really easily and take out a whole lot of little old ladies with them. Not to mention some trees, maybe a couple of deer, and the state police barracks. The snow comes down in giant flakes. They look like miniature comets complete with tails. Snowballs with comet tails flying at me out of the dark along Rt 125 looking mysterious and alien in the headlights. At home, my next door neighbor's tulips are already snowbound. The snow just keeps coming. It accumulates fast. It still looks like miniature comets, just slightly larger ones. My hair and clothing turn white between the parking lot and my back door. It melts fast indoors and I'm soaked before I get my jacket off. I call Nancy. It's not snowing in Providence. It's only snowing in the Merrimack Valley.