Easter Eggs?

We are not supposed to have snow here in Virginia, at least not this much. After all Easter will be coming soon. In the beginning of the week we had nearly a foot of ice covered snow, beautiful to behold but also incredibly wicked. It held us hostage as schools, churches and even shopping centers closed. And so we stayed home, staring out of the windows at ice covered tree limbs breaking and crunching to the ground, cars stuck on our unplowed country road, an occasional bear like person, hunched against the driving snow, trudging by.

In ensuing days, as the temperature climbed, heavy rain fell with nowhere to go because of the frozen snow on the ground, nowhere except into my basement. It was flooded by a torrent of rippling water that had gathered at the top of the hill, rushed downward, curling around the base of our house halfway down the hillside, like the insidious tentacles of an octopus. After all, it was now wet enough to bring out imaginary octopi and water snakes from surrounding streams, wasn’t it? It was nature on a rampage.

Our basement blossomed like a summer garden as rugs submerged, storage boxes and bins, hampers and kitty litter floated around like flowers. My husband and I now spent two days with a wet/dry vac sucking water into it’s capacious interior then lifting buckets of the sucked up water and tossing them out the basement door, adding it to swirling mess already outside. This became a ten-hour, exhausting operation for the two of us as we kept on sucking the water out of the rugs. They remained soggy wet. Afraid of mildew and mold, we decided to drag our wet rugs up the stairs and out to our deck where we manhandled them over the railing. I envisioned sun coming out to dry my three 8 x 10 rugs. In fact, I envisioned us sitting on the deck in the summer sun and getting a sun tan.

The rugs hung there drip-drying while I washed the silt, loose wax, tile glue, and sediment from our basement floor. Finally, the sky darkened and we decided to stop for dinner, as well as check on our rugs. It was snowing once again and I shrieked, "My rugs, Frank! Look at them!" But it was too late. Snow capped each rug like a thick white centipede and as we watched, the weather changed into hail and freezing rain. The rugs were frozen to the railing, probably forever. I hoped not but the weatherman said another blast was coming.

My deck has a festive air and I’m thinking of winding Christmas lights through the posts and over the railing but my neighbors would think we were crazy. Right now, I’m inclined to agree as the constant snow is driving us bonkers. When will the wintry weather stop? Maybe by Easter, then we can hang colored Easter eggs on the railing. They would look pretty in the snow.

Liz Kollar

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