Up at 4.30 this morning to the sound of scraping snow plows and yelping emergency vehicles. All other noise is dampened by what I don’t want to think about because now I am just praying for the Shovel Fairy to come and dig out my house. I have a full bore dread of this chore, it’s cold and wet and I hate working my way down from the top of the high steps, unnaturally hunched over.

The alarm goes off at 7 and I resignedly go out to do that thing. It’s a thick snow, but wet, and easy to scrape clean to the bottom. The Shovel Fairy hasn’t come to my neighbor’s house either. So I do. I hope they are happy when they go out their doors later on.

More than one of my friends has likened me to Amelie Poulain, I think they like to imagine me imping about creating beauty. But I think it is there for everyone, I just try hard to keep my head up for it, or down, as the case may be.

On yesterday’s run I met up with teenagers dressed like the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man. Dorothy was a little further down the block, fussing with her shoes, plain black ones, not ready to go back to Kansas yet. The Tin Man was particularly fetching, in silver spandex pants, a silver mylar bomber jacket, and a colander on his head.

A couple of blocks later I ran past our notoriously short, famously rotund Borough President, out for a grand parade around the park, and looking very much like he should catch up to the others and claim his place as the Mayor of Munchkinland.

I keep going, all the way down the length of the park, expecting the Lollipop Guild to launch themselves from over the stone walls. My friends would not be surprised and perhaps, at this point, I wouldn’t be either.