Yesterday, on the way home from our last meet-up with friends before our flight out this morning, we stopped by the local Safeway to buy all the makings of decadence. Ah, what would that be? The stuff needed to bake chocolate chip peanut butter cookies and walnut fudge brownies. Among the best things in life. Especially when we can find yummy dairy-free Guittard chocolate chips. Yes, we bought Guittard chips. It was raining when we left Gaithersburg; sleet by the time we arrived at the grocery in Potomac; the snow was covering the ice with a pretty thick dusting by the time we arrived home at Monica’s house.

The tempo of the snow falling increased and the radio announced that people were abandoning their cars on the Capital Beltway. I baked cookies while David and Sarah kept their noses buried in their respective computers. The lights flickered frequently enough for us to get out a flashlight as well as find the candles and matches. Sarah told us about last year’s big storm and how they lost power during it. Great. Softball practice was canceled–no kidding.

Then we had a big “BOOM!” bang out back along with a blue-white flash of light and the power blacked out for a few seconds. Long enough for us to think that we’d lost power. Ah, but it was just a teaser and the power returned. Sigh. Good. As it turns out, there’s a transformer down the way that makes a habit of flashing light and big noises during storms. All part of normal storm behavior around here. About 10 minutes later, I heard a crack…craaaaaack…wooooosh…followed by a house-shaking and thunderous rumble. It sounded like a huge tree had fallen on the house but as it turned out (thank goodness) nothing so grand–it was simply half of a normal-sized tree. Luckily the power stayed with us.

David went outside to shovel snow and I continued on into making salad and chicken for dinner. Cooking is always a good diversion for worry. Monica and Bob eventually made their separate ways home. Monica and David finishing up the shoveling in the falling snow and rearranging the cars at the bottom of the driveway hill so we could all leave in the morning. While we watched a DVD, our airline called to let us know our flight was canceled.

And now we sit here looking at the lovely snow outside and enjoying our winter interlude.