Weather or not?

See the snowflakes? No? My camera must be melting them. :)

Relatively new to living an hour and a half from Toronto, our trips back to the city are frequent. Hubby drives back and forth every week, sometimes two or three times. Today he had a dental appointment plus a male choir practice in the evening and prepared to set out at 3 o'clock. It had just started snowing and he knew the 401 would be a slippery deal. When our neighbour's son showed up from having driven the highway, he said the road was really bad. So, I called the dentist to say hubby might be a little late because of the treacherous roads out our way (I tend to exaggerate, but I may be right this time) and the dental office suggested another day.


Hubby has never cancelled appointments or failed to enter into stormy climate conditions in all his life. He will go through anything to hold up his end of a promise to meet. That was not always convenient for me, much less him, because it led to things like him being in Israel a month after I gave birth to our 5th child, so that I was home for Christmas with 5 kids under 12 and he was in Bethlehem, of all places :).

I know I have nothing on military families, but back in 1985 this made me a tiny bit unhappy. The phone call from the place of Jesus' birth on Christmas Eve was pretty nice, as I imagined him standing at the spot which held the manger. It was only later when I discovered what a tourist mecca Bethlehem is - complete with booths selling souvenirs - that the beautiful serene nativity scene in my mind evaporated.

I ran to the front door to catch the hub-hub who was coming up the walk on one of his typical re-entries before takeoff, to say I had the dental receptionist on the phone and that she was offering him Thursday as an alternative. In the urgency of the moment, he took the phone and after some macho gruntings to aver his ability to take on any weather, he acquiesced to the change of date.

He was not happy to have to drive out today, but given the choice not to, his chance to stay put was replaced by disappointment in himself. With each passing quarter hour, he looked outside and said something like "I could've gone, it's letting up" or "I should have gone, why did I cancel?".

We talked to our daughter who phoned from Toronto, and he asked her about the weather there. "It's kind of rainy" said she. I can just imagine what was going through hubbub's head hearing that!

He said he's thinking of going to choir.

It really is snowing - honest!