I didn't need to have faith in the weatherman. Schools were canceled so both Tara and I were off the hook. She was free to follow her delusion of pulling an all-nighter to work on her art portfolio. I was free to follow my delusion that I was still capable of pulling an all-nighter.
10:30 Tara gets home from work and announces that the roads are terrible and we should start shoveling. We gear up and easily clear the first couple of inches. A nice young Snowplowman in a yellow truck stops in front of the house to ask if we are going out. We tell him that we are not going anywhere, but intend to stay up all night and take care of the snow in small manageable increments. I do my best to impress upon him that I am incapable of shoveling large mountains of frozen snow plowed into the base of my driveway. He promises to try not to do that.
11:30 BP, Tara, and I are sitting around contentedly enjoying the fire and the knowledge that we have a snowday. There is an ominous crunching sound in front of the house. We leap up to investigate. An Evil Snowplowman in a blue truck has just pushed a three-foot mountain of frozen snow left over from the post-Christmas blizzard into the bottom of our driveway. I draft BP and the three of us go outside. BP and I shovel while Tara lifts and launches ice boulders onto where we estimate our sidewalk and front lawn to be.
1:00 BP is in bed. Tara and I shovel again. It is easy. Good Snowplowman is scraping by our curb. He sees Tara and straightens out the plow. She gives him a thumbs up.
1:30 Tara is finally drawing. I am playing a mindless adventure game on the computer.
2:00 I've had enough of the game, so I settle on the couch with my Kindle.
2:05 I don't know what Tara's doing because I am sound asleep on the couch.
3:00 Tara wakes me by announcing that it's time to shovel again. My body rises from the couch and puts on boots and coat. More mountain has been deposited at the base of the driveway. She gets to work on it while I start at the top. Soon Good Snowplowman comes. This time he slows, swerves gently into the bottom of the driveway, and moves the mountain to the side. An enemy has become my hero.
5:15 I wake up from my reading. Tara is no longer at the kitchen table or in the diningroom. I look outside and find her clearing the snow from her car. The snow has stopped falling and she has cleaned the driveway down to the pavers. She soon comes inside and I lavishly praise her handiwork. This is a behavior I clearly want to reinforce.
6:45 Postscript: The dog has not stayed up at all and comes down to announce breakfast time. I don't see Tara but note that her boots are next to the kitchen table. I assume she has gone to bed and contemplate doing the same. Then I hear Tara talking to me. I look up at the balcony but she is not there. She's not in the diningroom or the hall. She is still talking from very close by. I convince myself that I am really asleep. Then I look at the other couch and remember that the blue and yellow blanket had been dropped on the floor in a heap. It is now in a heap on the other couch and Tara is curled up in a ball under it. She seems to be sleeptalking. She didn't do much by way of artwork, but what a job on the driveway! She made it all the way to sunrise, which is more than I can say for myself.
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