First real snow of the season

Winter can uncomfortable and dangerous but breathtakingly lovely.  The kids moan about shoveling and hauling firewood one minute, and begging the Flying Spaghetti Monster for a snow day the next.  The meteorologists insist on a total accumulation of one inch even as there are three on the ground and it's still falling thickly (which is the situation my stepfather and I found ourselves in driving home from Boston last night at 40 mph).

Earth stood hard as irony....