Even though Rumor had it that schools would be closed on Friday the 8th due to an impending “perfect snowstorm” named NEMO, I still got up at 5:30 to check both the Weather Channel and Channel 9 to see if the pending blizzard was real enough for Saratoga Springs HS to cancel school that day. Since the north country (as opposed to the core of the Capital District, south of us) was receiving steady snowfall already as early bands of lake-effect whitestuff passed through, I was elated to find out that YES, SSHS was on the “CLOSED” list– not just late arrival or early dismissal. This not only saved me some driving in terms of not having to chauffeur my darling freshman daughter to the West Ave Campus, but also freed up my day in that I had no other appointments scheduled. Breathless newscasters had gotten the population worked up to expect a Snowmeggedan like we hadn’t seen in years, and most people had postponed their real estate plans till it was past.
YIPPIE!! I felt the primordial elation of an 8 year old, free to play for a winter day. But instead of putting on my snowsuit and galoshes as in days of yore, my mind started flooding with all the ideas of how I might spend the day…
Here was my partial list of Things To Do on a Snowday:
1) NOTHING! (This was my first choice, but the least likely…still, a tempting thought)
2) READ! (I had another William Kennedy book at hand, also “Cloud Atlas,” or Thoreau’s Walden to re-consider…or if I went the self-improvement route– Miguel Ruiz’s “The Four Agreements,” or Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth” were beckoning to me for review. I also
had a pile of magazines to choose from– two recent issues of Rolling Stone, a year’s worth of REALTOR Magazine, and some beguiling OUTSIDE adventure mags I hadn’t even opened up yet. There was also a new METROLAND, and the Cambridge, NY-based Hill Country Observer I’d picked up fresh at Spring Street Market the day before. Too many choices, still not enough time…)
3) BLOG! (My own writing output had been nil for a while, so why not catch up? I had a long unfinished piece on WEXT’s Top 977 rock songs I wanted to wrap up and publish, but it was turning into more of a manifesto than a blog… and I had started another piece called, tentatively, “The Million Reasons Why I Can’t Finish My Novel…” but I kept getting interrupted, which was exactly the point! Then I thought about writing my SnowDay List…this!–and yet still did not get to it till the next day, which shows how I procrastinate!)
4) RESEARCH! (I still had real estate chores I could tackle, as there are always new searches to be run for this client or that, to stay on top of what’s out there, or comps to be studied for the presentation of the next offer I have to present…)
5) EMAIL! (Likewise, always a good indoor task which can be accomplished in any weather, wherever one is…as long as RoadRunner of the 4G network don’t go down…but you know what? I do email religiously every day, so who not take one day off?)
6) HANDWRITTEN LETTERS! (I had a list of former clients and casual friends and unresolved would-be leads I could take the time to appeal to in an old-fashioned manner…how many Realtors still do this?? It would give me practice at writing cursive, which I hear is becoming a lost art among our youth…)
7) WORKOUT! (The weights in the basement, the bench, the kettleballs, were all awaiting me on a day like this…why not break a sweat?!)
8) CALL SOME PEOPLE! (Come to think of it, I still had some work calls to return, or appointments to set, or listings to arrange…aw man, I guess it can’t really be a COMPLETE day off after all…)
9) UPGRADE MY SKILLS! (If I am going to thrive as a Realtor I know there are some technical tutorials I could be watching and studying today… DocuSign, Paragon’s intimate secrets of the MLS, Internet Tracking mechanisms, etc etc etc… a perfect day to do it? Naw… not right now…)
10) GIVE MYSELF REIKI, and SEND SOME… (It would be a great time, I decided, to recharge my own Reiki battery, and to silently offer some healing energy to those who I know need it… a noble and worthy use of some rare quiet time…)
11) MAKE BREAKFAST! (Which is one of my favorite things, actually– my current specialty being a slow-carb version: mushroom/yellow pepper/spinach/red onion and asiago omelette, with a side of natural chicken sausage and black beans simmered with
red pepper flakes…no bread, no pancakes or waffles like in the past… I feel energized yet not bloated…)
12) SHOVEL SOME SNOW! (Yes, I still perform the manual method, which would later augment my basement workout nicely, with some fresh air ingested at the same time, to balance my work at the desk…)
13) FEED THE BIRDS! (This would have to come first, as the snow coming down would obliterate whatever seed was still left on the feeders and the ground, and I had to offer more…)
14) TAKE A HIKE OUT BACK! (Pencil this is for later in the day, to go down and see how the Kaydeross Creek looks in the snowfall…)
15) TAKE A NAP! (I’d save this for later afternoon, after the workout, the shovelling, the hike, and hopefully a bunch of other stuff on the list… aren’t snowday naps the best??!)
Well, truth be told, just making the list took me a while, and to some extent helped me prioritize, but also let me realize how busy a day off could be. So after I woke Bella to tell her to go back to sleep, and discussed with my wife whether we should worry about letting Daryn go up to SUNY/ACC up in Queensbury or not (we didn’t), I began to accomplish some things on my list. I began with #13, the birdseed need, commenced to my own breakfast, #11, and then attended to an hour’s worth of #8– setting appointments for the days after the snowstorm.
Then I worked in a bit of #1 on the list– NOTHING!– simply listening to Dave Michael’s chosen music on WEXT while watching the birds out back appreciate my scattered birdseed feast for them. That was pleasant, for a while, but then my anxious mind kept coming up with more urgent things to add onto the list–
#16 ORGANIZE TAX INFORMATION, (for my meeting with Tom Kubiak in two weeks, a great chore to perform when no other pressing matters were at hand);
#17 RUN INTO TOWN ONCE MORE FOR CERTAIN SUPPLIES, as we were low on the good Columbian coffee we love so much, candles and “D” batteries and all that “camping-out stuff” you need if you don’t have a whole-house generator yet, like us…
#18 MEDITATE, AND JUST CHILL… (under the assumption that blizzards are God’s way of slowing us manic Northeasterners down from our frantic patterns, and teaching us, however briefly, to look within, and hibernate for a day, OK!)
What I specifically left off my list was: WATCHING TV (avoiding more weather news, financial forecasts, tragic news here and there, ESPN recaps of previous day’s action,
and old movies which some of my friends claim to be interesting, but which I can’t tolerate… that would truly be a waste of the day.
I also AVOIDED reading the YAHOO Finance page for a change, the Top Trends of the Day, the Gossip on OMG! and TMZ! and anyone else’s Blogs. That was refreshing, and
I wanted to keep my mind uncluttered. It worked.
Needless to say, not everything on my sacred list was accomplished, nor even dabbled in– butit was still refreshing not to have to go anywhere (as I refrained from the supply run, and we decided to make due with what we had in the house). I did manage to pump a little more iron than usual, stretch out my lower back on the yoga ball, and shovel two or three times by the end of the day, feeling righteous about the physical exercise. And now, the next morning, I managed to file at least one of my intended blogs. There is more shovelling to be done as the storm is over now, and I have ordered my mind in certain ways, and breathed deeper, and slowed down a bit– have you?? I hope so,for we all need it.I’m sure you have a huge list of things to do when there’s NOTHING MANDATORY to do, too… let me know!
Take care, and I promise to come up with something more interesting soon…
Copyright Wayne Perras 2013