Full moon driving

Here's a sight I never saw in Brooklyn: Light from the full moon reflecting on the snow and lighting up our bedroom at 1 am. Extraordinary. And gorgeous.

We had terrible rain last Tuesday, torrential, and that morning Dave drove me to work and Lily to a playdate. Her friend was going to come over here, but her mom couldn't get out of her driveway, which wasn't plowed. Then her mom called to say she was hearing that the roads were terrible and everyone should stay home. We were almost there so dropped Lily off, anyway, and thank goodness Dave was driving.

Times like this I feel like a total city girl. We were swimming through lakes in the dips in the road and the displaced water splashed up over our roof. There's a reason everyone who can afford to owns a Subaru here, they have very high suspension. I am a good basic driver, I follow the rules and I'm not afraid of the road (just drunk and/or stupid drivers). But I don't have a lot of experience with driving through monstrous puddles, or their frozen lakes the next day, or blizzards.

When I lived in Cambridge in the early '80s I used to ride my bike to work in Boston until I was hit twice in two weeks, neither time my fault. But I stopped riding anyway because I figured I couldn't afford the learning curve. I rode for little bit in Brooklyn but was very fearful, and then when Lily's trail-a-bike fell off onto Fifth Avenue (which at that moment was empty, thank god, and I was going slow), I stopped taking her. Then when a 27-year-old public interest attorney was killed at the end of my block on her way to work, I quit riding entirely. Again, I can't afford the learning curve.

Here I have to drive, though, so I drive slowly and pay attention to all the street signs. I signal in parking lots, for god's sake. So far, so good. I am going to the gym so I can get into shape enough to ride my bike to work every day once the weather warms up. But a) it's Northampton, where there's lots of bikes, and b) most of my trip is on the bike path.