Two important things to remember as the Blizzard of 2015 approaches

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As my home state of Connecticut prepares for the oncoming blizzard, there are a few things to keep in mind:
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The blizzard will hit on Monday night and continue through Tuesday. But the roads will be cleared and stores will be open by Wednesday, which means we are talking about about 36 hours trapped indoors.

And you’ll probably spend about 16 of those hours sleeping.

This is not a big deal. Even if you lose power, which will suck, it’s not a big deal.
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I’d also like to remind my fellow New Englanders that blizzards are not exactly uncommon in our neck of the woods. In the last five years, New England – and specifically Connecticut – has been hit by three major blizzards, more than two dozen snowstorms of a foot or more, and an October nor’easter which did more damage than all of the blizzards combined.

  • Blizzard of 2013: 24-40 inches

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  • Blizzard of 2011: 20-30 inches
  • Halloween nor-easter of 2011: 18 inches of snow and a majority of residents without power for more than a week
  • Blizzard of 2010: 12-24 inches of snow

We’ve seen this before. We’ll see it again. We live in New England. It shouldn’t be a surprise. 

Also, you probably had enough bread and milk to get you through Wednesday.

My children visited a bookstore on the last day of summer. Their behavior was shocking.

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We spent the last day of summer on the Connecticut shoreline. Among our choice of activities was a visit to our favorite bookstore, R.J. Julia in Madison, Connecticut.

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Elysha and I once spent hours in bookstores, but when our children entered our lives, that changed. We tried for a while to do some tag-team parenting.  One parent relaxes while the other stops the monsters from ripping every book off the shelf.

It wasn’t fun.

But something happened on that last day of summer. I brought the kids upstairs to the children’s section of the bookstore, and within a minute, with no intervention on my part, this happened:

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Not only did they plop themselves down and start reading, but they remained this way for a full 30 minutes.

Just imagine how much better it will be when they can actually read!

I probably couldn’t leave them unattended and descend to the adult section, but while my wife browsed below, I browsed the children’s section, which I sort of love anyway. I’ve written a few picture books that I am hoping to  eventually sell, and I missed out on these books as a child, so I still have lots of catching up to do. 

Even if this weren’t the case, this is a huge improvement over chasing them around, shushing them, and returning strewn books to the shelves.

This is good.

There is hope for the future.

I brought my son home from the hospital and found myself in the midst of Hartford’s Puerto Rican parade.

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When I picked up my newborn son from the hospital on Sunday and finally brought him and my wife home, I had the unexpected pleasure of driving through Hartford’s Puerto Rican Day parade in order to get to and from the hospital. In doing so, I learned a great deal about this parade, which I never even knew existed until Sunday.

Among the more memorable observations:

  1. In truth, I didn’t drive through the actual parade, which began at 11:00 AM and finished well before 1:00 PM. I arrived in the neighborhood around 2:00 PM, and although the marching bands and parade floats had been gone for more than an hour, the Puerto Rican people had taken to the streets in cars decked out with the Puerto Rican flag and commenced an impromptu, amoeba-like extension of the parade that oozed its way into every corner of the neighborhood.
  2. I’ve never seen people more excited about a parade. The amount of pride that Puerto Ricans possess for their cultural heritage is second to none.
  3. Automobile safety, particularly in terms of seatbelts and the general practice of keeping the humans inside the vehicle, is apparently optional, and perhaps even frowned upon, on the day of the parade. I saw vans packed with humanity driving down streets with children as young as 7 or 8 years old hanging out of the vehicle by one arm. I saw a guy driving his Toyota Corolla in traffic with his head protruding through the sun roof. I saw children standing in the backs of moving pick-up trucks and lying prone on the hoods of moving cars. I saw a car drive by with its trunk popped open. Stuffed inside, waiving tiny Puerto Rican flags, were at least half a dozen people, twisted together in what appeared to be a human version of the Gordian knot.
  4. The constant, incessant blaring of car horns was apparently required by anyone driving a car with a Puerto Rican flag affixed to it. This constant blaring was often augmented by the use of trumpets, vuvuzelas and drums, all stuffed within the confines of these vehicles.
  5. Though the were streets were filled with these loud, overstuffed vehicles, nary a pedestrian could be found. Bizarre. 
  6. Traffic lights served only as suggestions following the parade. I quickly learned to drive through intersections at my own risk.
  7. Clothing above the waist is optional for both men and women.

I’ll have to remember to tell Charlie about this last one when he is old enough to appreciate it.