snowflakes

 from Zweter Wind on flickr

Season of snowflakes.

12/11/09
Dark coming to work today, 19 degrees. Almost two years ago I was walking over to production in the snow. Individual flakes were drifting slowly out of the sky. I noticed that some of the flakes were spinning, like a propeller. As always it was very exciting for me to observe something new in the natural world. While I have seen snow spinning out of the sky since then, I have never seen that "propeller" effect in exactly the same way.
It is dark now when I leave work, but the parking lot is illuminated. On Monday night the snow was falling slowly out of the sky. I stopped to look for spinning snowflakes. I figured that if I was able to look at a flake high above me, and follow it all the way down, I might see it spinning.
So there I was on the walkway at work, staring up into the sky. Don't really know for how long. Suddenly I noticed a couple of co-workers walking by me on the way to their cars. They didn't say anything, but they gave off that "you're really weird, Jim" aura that Shawn does so well. I panicked, and quickly opened the door to my car except that it wasn't my car, it was the Tuttle company car, a Honda Accord. I made my way to my black Honda Civic, and opened the door except that it was actually Shirley's car (which looks exactly like mine). I finally limped across the parking lot to my car, and drove home. Never did see any "spinners." Like Joni Mitchell said, "Something's lost, but something's gained in living every day."