A little faerie dusting

About five years ago I decided enough was enough. If I was going to have to endure another northeast winter I was going to damn well enjoy it. So I did what any consumer-driven, non-diaper-buying newlywed would do: I plunked down a couple-a hundred bucks for a pair a cross-country skis.

I'd taken up the sport two years earlier when a friend suggested a trip to a local ski area she and her husband frequented. From my first wobbly decent down the hill in the freshly laid tracks (ending no doubt, precariously on my posterior) I was hooked.

• I was outdoors
• The air was cold
• I was warm
• It was fun

Up until that very moment I had forgotten all the days my mom had to physically haul my red-faced, blue-lipped, chattering teethed self back into the house to warm up against my protests of not being cold.

Up until that minute, I had forgotten how much I loved winter.

How could I have known paying $350 for a cross-country ski package would ensure the end of snow-covered hills in our region?

How could I have guessed that in the five years that followed - the snowiest of which occurred during 2003-2004, the year I was PREGNANT - I would be able to use the skis a grand total of six times?

I suppose it wasn't the wisest of things to impulse buy end-of-season snowshoes for Ittybit last year -- the only year I satisfied my jones to ski by standing in the storage room and trying them on -- since my superstitious mind now firmly believes such effrontery (and not merely global warming) could only explain the lack of wintry weather since.

But impulse buy I did.

And for 12 months, those green snowshoes have hung in the closet - tormenting me.

I had no idea they were tormenting her too:

MAMA: OH, ITTYBIT. ... Look it snowed. Let's go out an play.

ITTYBIT: It DID?!! Wait. I'll get my stuff.

(disappears and returns with her hat and snowshoes).

There may have been only a dusting ... but it's a start.