snow and sociability

A lost work by Jane Austen? No, the last week-and-a-bit here.
Mark has been away in Arizona, at the semi-disastrous Estrella War, and I've been here, cleaning and tidying the house (to my specs, which may not be universally accepted) followed by spreading my stuff around on the excavated horizontal surfaces. Sometimes I danced around the house singing 'Mine, mine, mine.'
I watched--while rowing--How to Train Your Dragon, which I enjoyed greatly. Mostly I've been watching videocassettes with subtitles, because the rowing machine is kind of noisy, and I'm usually rowing early in the morning, when I don't want to turn the sound up to bellowing level. Previously I've watched Comet, Butterfly and Sword; Lady Hermit; Legend of Zu; Zu Warriors; The Crimson Charm; Magnificent Swordsman (gave up on that one). How to Train Your Dragon made for a change of pace and genre.
That was not the sociable part though. The sociable part was last weekend, when I had visitors, yes. Thursday, our friends Paul and Shona came for dinner, even with the warning that I was only making tuna casserole (comfort food). Friday, Stephen was in town to attend a concert and spent the night here. Saturday and Sunday, my friends Lynne and Tony came over from Seattle, and we had dinner at the Won Ton Noodle House (yes, that's its real name) and lunch the next day at the Penny Farthing, and talked a lot, about writing and reading and work and collecting and stuff. I got to talk about my writing! and believe that the other people were interested and not just being polite! The food was terrific too--I'm astonished I've gone so long not knowing how good the Won Ton Noodle House was. I must make up for lost time.
I know I'm very lucky in having online friends to whom I can go on about writing & about my books. But there's still something special about being able to talk to someone face to face--and it is lovely for the ego to talk about my own characters and stories more than about the craft of writing. Though I suppose doing it regularly would result in unsightly bloating of the ego.

Yes, it has SNOWED in Victoria and the Island generally, between 5 and 20 cm on Wednesday. When I got up, 6ish, there was only a little, but it came down hard, and by the time I set out to work I'd had to shovel the front walk and sidewalk twice. I did the neighbours on each side as well, because it's always a toss-up whether someone in Victoria even owns a snowshovel.
So gorgeous, though. Until later in the day there was no wind, so the tree branches were all laid in with white, the grey and black underlying it like shadows. Except for ruts in the road and the shoveled walks, the snow was smooth as if it had been sanded down. Every now and then a powdering would fall from the trees or roof-edges, and spread itself out, vanishing. Only later did clumps fall and leave their ghost-tracks.
I made a half-hearted attempt to bicycle, but that didn't work at all. The slush built up between tire and fender, and the ruts in the road sent me slithering sideways. So I walked to the bus stop and waited nearly half an hour, during which time about 5 buses should have gone by, but didn't (2 went by in the opposite direction) and all the people who were waiting when I arrived gave up and went home. I might have been able to walk most of the way to work in that time, but given how many sidewalks weren't shoveled, it might have been difficult.
Wednesday was the day Mark got back, so on his return from the desert he was greeted by snow.
The cat is confused by the whole business. Last night she was so whiny about wanting to go outside, then refusing it when the door opened onto a world of white, that I tossed her out into the snow, where she remained, bleating and unmoving, until making a sudden astounding leap back through the door, without touching the snow in between.
Cat-butt-print shown below: