The Start of Winter

I mark the true start of winter from the date I hurriedly put the last few things from the yard—the garden hose, the wheelbarrow, the deck chairs—into the back shed because it’s about to seriously snow. Today was that day.

I also moved my bicycle, and Oliver’s, inside, marking the end of cycling season (last year I went all the way to December 2), put the lawnmower to bed, and moved the snow shovel up from the basement.

It seems more winter this year because I’ve started to turn down lunch and dinner dates, moving my personal COVID Code Red ahead of Public Health’s in the abundance of caution (and prevalence of anxiety).

As it happens, Amazon Web Services has been having a technical issue today the result of which is my receiving a text message every 15 minutes or so that says, in essence, “everything’s okay.” While under different circumstances that would be annoying, today the constant reassurance, as snow starts to fall, is welcome.

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