We experienced our first major snowstorm of the season Tuesday. It started before midnight on Monday as Bill and I were driving home from drum practice. When we woke up Tuesday morning we had four inches of whiteness covering everything. Then by 5:00 the freezing rain hit and lasted off and on all night. Before dawn on Wednesday, more snow--heavy snow--was coming down. It was wonderfully pretty all day filling me with a sense of comfort and coziness to be in a warm (well, warm is questionable since this ill-planned addition put on by the previous owner doesn't have the right heating components in it) place out of the storm. And then just as suddenly, by noon on Wednesday, it stopped. When the shy sun came out from behind a cloud, the icy white world lit up in an amazing sparkle. Now that's a snowstorm! I sat here by my window peering out and exclaiming, "Wow! Is that beautiful!" When the whole vista is shrouded in white from the top of the trees to the bottom of the deck, what else can one say?

The awesome part of all this is that the library closed down Wednesday. Bill didn't have to go to work all day. 'Course, in Canada that wouldn't have happened. This would have been a minor snow event for them. But here, these kind of snowfalls don't happen as often so the road crews aren't as prepared to hustle the snow off the roads. And, well, the ice complicated everything. Bill said that clearing the driveway was a two-step process. First was the heavy snow, then was the hard ice. He only had the energy to do the driveway, not the sidewalk by the boulevard. There is a city ordinance that says the snow must be cleared off the sidewalk in front of your house but hardly anyone does it. Bill is the conscientious type and hates to neglect something like that but he just didn't have it in him to complete the job. He can't make snowbears anymore, either. Now, I find that part of it very sad. The cold air and the heavy exertion kicks his asthma up.

I hadn't been out since Monday night so going to the chemo treatment today was a breath of cold fresh air for me. After seeing the doctor, we walked to the next suite for the treatment and we looked around in amazement. Literally every reclining chair was full with other people getting their treatments. I think there is about twenty-one chairs in there, maybe one or two more. In some of the chairs were relatives or 'chaperones' who accompanied the patient, like Bill accompanies me but that was only about five of the patients, I'd say. Oh, six, counting Bill. So, that still left a lot of people who had the same sorry fate as me--getting stuck with a needle and having fluids dripped into them. And they were out of pretzels! Dayum. I like the lemon cream-filled cookies anyway (plus pretzels). Good news is that the chemo is doing its job. The last tumor marker blood test showed that the cancer cells had shrunk back about 2/3 of its highest size after one month of treatment.

By the time we left it was 3:45 and I was hungry for some real food. My breakfast had been at 9:30. I surprised myself by wanting to go to the Chinese buffet around the corner. I had a $2.00 off coupon, too (which we forgot to use). I've been having this thing about shushi for the last year or more and this buffet serves a nice spread of it. I managed to eat a fair amount of my favorite foods in spite of the fact that I haven't been too hungry for a couple of months. Bill appreciated it because he was able to have a hot meal for once. He'd been eating cold dinners because the smell of food cooking was kicking up my nausea. I did manage to make one heckuva chicken pot pie on Wednesday, though. I managed to get through the cooking of without getting nauseated because I took an anti-nausea pill at noon. And ate something right after taking it. I might be finding the secret to keeping the nausea at bay.