Monday again? Sometimes things just aren’t what they seem.  It looks like a mere dusting on my driveway; why did the sand truck just go by my house?

Last week was such a “vigorous” week; I shoveled my driveway four times.  I snowshoed every day.  Somewhere between scooping up, stomping on, and pushing snow, I discovered a teeny tiny discolored spot on my bedroom ceiling.

Ice dam.

I’ve watched my neighbor Breezy rake his roof each and every time he shovels, but I haven’t been so diligent myself.  Roof raking is not as easy as it looks and sometimes after pushing 50 or so scoops of snow up and over the banking, I shrug my shoulders and say “eh.”

I won’t do that again.

After I discovered the teeny tiny discolored spot, damp to the touch, I sent an alarmed text with pictures to Mr. DeeHan.  He was fighting a cold.  It wasn’t his week.  But like the bon homme he is, he texted marching orders.  Go to the hardware store and buy a hundred pounds of ice melting pellets.  He’d be here with a ladder within the hour.  Maybe it wasn’t what it seemed.

I won’t go into laborious and painstaking detail except to say sometimes a smooth white blanket of snow is more than a pretty picture.  Things aren’t always what they seem; the ice dam was melting within an hour and Mr. DeeHan left the ladder up against the roof for regular inspections.

Winter in Maine.  Ayuh.

It snowed again Saturday night and I got my shoveling done early on Sunday morning.  Even though I had been out and about a few times during the week, all the snow and the dull routine of moving it left me feeling trapped in my own winter wonderland.  I texted Mr. DeeHan, suggesting a run to Lucy & Edna’s in Pownal.  The weekly French music program was on when he got here and he listened for a minute then asked what the singer was saying.  It was a French language version of Simon & Garfunkel’s The 59^th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy).  Except in French, there is no word for “groovy” and the Franco refrain was “Vive la vie que c’est bon la vie.”

Living the life that’s the good life.

I hadn’t listened carefully and the singing was pretty fast and I told Mr. DeeHan I didn’t know what they were saying.

“It sounds like they’re saying ‘feeling larry.’”

He laughed and we headed out in the Jeep.  Sprung from my own surroundings, I was impressed by the beauty of the snow on the trees.  Someone else’s snow was lovely.  I suggested this to Mr. DeeHan but he declined the bait.

“You’re not going to get me to say the snow is beautiful.”

Edna & Lucy’s did not disappoint with fresh donuts and grilled egg & sausage on rosemary focaccia.  There was some sun and it wasn’t yet crowded in the restaurant.

We were living the good life…feeling larry.

Vive la vie!