Snow "Down East"

I am on my first weekend on-call with my new assignment.

With the arrival of cold weather, RSV Bronchiolitis has reared its ugly head and I've been at the hospital this morning . . . tucking children in and setting them free as their condition/progress allows.

After much anticipatory wailing and gnashing of teeth, it finally snowed last night. I think it's only the third time in ten years that I have seen snow or ice down here (once was a lovely New Year's Eve at the beach a long, long time ago). As I did the rounds downtown this weekend (checking things out), I was warned by several of the locals to be careful . . . that while I appeared to a sensible and self-reliant and well-travelled girl . . . and they were quite confident that I could drive in the snow . . . I had to worry about everybody else . . . "those damned Yankees come down here and drive like fools . . . and a lot of us don't know how."

Yesterday after rounds, unlike the locals frantically stocking up on bread and milk at the local grocery store, I casually strolled the downtown shops under my umbrella . . . and stocked up on gingerbread and exotic bakery treats. And I also found some coffee with chicory (right out of New Orleans) at one of the gift shops. I stopped by the hospital again just before dark - and checked on my charges. At sundown, I was in my "home-away-from-home" and braced for the badness that never really came.

This was a wet snow . . . that fell after a day of cold hard rain. There was not a lot for it to stick to except the bridges and the grass. The thin glaze over everything this morning when I first woke up was very pretty. But the sun came out, and the white stuff was already trying to melt by the time I pulled out of the driveway this morning.

As I pulled out of the driveway, I saw a lone child in her front yard trying to throw handfuls of the slosh up into the air. Nearby, a sad pile of dirty ice left a clue that her attempts to build a snowman were for naught. In my rear-view mirror, I chuckled as I watched her lip come out in disappointment when the slosh she had tossed in the air landed heavily beside her. This was not the winter-wonderland she had expected.

When I got to the hospital, I was amused by the evenly-spaced little piles of salt that I had to step over on the outside walkways. No one apparently thought to spread the salt beyond the place where it was dumped.

I finished my work at the hospital, then stopped by one of the local waterfront eateries to have brunch . . . and surf the Internet (as a few glitches in my accommodations have yet to be worked out - and that's all I'm gonna say about that). It's a quaint little place . . . kind of confused and eclectic in its decoration . . . with shrines to football and the beach and voodoo in one corner or another. Some of the stuff on the walls looks like someone handed the local eccentric a paintbrush and let him/her loose on the canvas . . . and then called it "art".

I love it. It is my goal in life to be the crazy lady with the paintbrush someday.

This particular eatery has a unique and delicious concoction called "Baked French Toast" which is now on my list of favorite things. I must see if I can pry the recipe from the proprietor.

The after-church crowd is sifting in . . . and the place is starting to fill up. I feel obliged to fold up the laptop and relinquish my table.

The snow is gone.