Last night, we were sitting around steaming bowls of lovely Chicken, Corn and Potato Chowder following an insane afternoon filled with some snow flakes, a mad rush to grab our kids from school so they didn’t have to take the bus on our neighborhood’s near-instantaneous treacherous roads once any sort of winter participation hits, and a 3 hour, 10 minute commute for Kenny (for what’s normally a 4.7 mile commute that takes 15 minutes).

Grace started a frequent dinner table conversation where each of us shares “one good thing, one bad thing and something nice you did for someone” from our day.

Grace started. I followed. Kenny followed me, sharing some nice thoughts on how he was thankful to have made it home safely.

Gavin went last. His good thing was his OBOB (Oregon Battle of the Books meeting) because he and his friends made a plan and some reading progress. His bad thing was his OBOB meeting because he still has so much reading to do, including Harry Potter, which he simply cannot seem to get into. His nice thing? “Eating Mom’s dinner.”

Seriously?!

Dying. I could not stop laughing. The underlying sentiments of his reply – Taking one for the team. Charity eating. Doing this for you, Mom! – kind of fresh, but I appreciated (as always) his quick wit. I would have felt worse if the chowder stunk, but that stuff was good – and an especially fitting meal for a snowy Portland afternoon. Granted, it was such a winter freak show yesterday afternoon that I forgot to add the chicken and fresh parsley to the chowder – but it wasn’t greatly missed judging by the lack of leftovers.

This kid. He is very much a ‘everything has a spot on the plate and nothing can touch’ type of kid. Unless it’s croutons on lettuce. The mo’ touching, the better for that dish. So, soups and casseroles aren’t his favorite thing.

As for the snow? Officially, we have 2.0″ on the ground and it’s literally like a post-apocalyptic winter’s morn here today. (Check out this photo gallery for a sampling of pics). Tales of hundreds of abandoned cars, people walking home for miles, and kids stuck at school until well after 7 p.m. are the lead headlines today. These are coupled with tales of humanity and goodness of people helping people, which I always love. I feel like yesterday went from two snowflakes falling to a real shit show in the matter of an hour…almost as if everyone saw those first two snowflakes, and left work / school / whatever at the exact same time, compounding what normally would have been a dicey drive in the snow with heavy traffic. This created near-instant gridlock throughout the city and surrounding towns – with the earliest drivers seemingly crushing the first flakes into a layer of ice. And, all the while the snow kept falling and making things worse.

Between the infrequency of the snow, the hilly terrain, and the lack of rock salt use here … Portland is not a city that weathers winter weather well. Given this, my bets are on our kids being home with until January at this point. Any takers? 🙂

Ah, Portland, Oregon. This is turning into quite the winter with “all” of the snow so far!