When one has several feet of snow resting on one’s lawn and the temperature rises markedly over a few days’ time, a few things transpire. Firstly, one’s mood greatly improves as the mind and body begin to think thoughts of longer days, springtime sunshine, and flowery fields just begging to be laid upon while fluffy, white clouds flit overhead in the shapes of bunnies, squirrels, and playful marmots. Secondly, all the snow which has buried one’s landscape – the rose bushes, the garden path, and that low spot in the yard which makes it hard to mow over by the forsythia - begins to melt. This makes what the layman calls water. In Rockland, Maine, this water flows either to the waiting bosom of the Mother Atlantic or up through my basement’s drain grate.

On Saturday morning, after a great Friday night of wine, popcorn, and my new collector’s copy of The Big Lebowski, I tromped downstairs to our basement in the hopes of taking some bags of trash and a stack of old newspapers to the town dump transfer station. This is the second time in a year that ground water has back-flowed up our drain. The first time coincided with the Patriots’ Day storm of ‘07 – a meteorological fluke of copious rain and frozen ground that could not be repeated for a century or more. So my Saturday was spent manning our utility pump, running buckets of water outside, mopping, and assessing the damage to what we had down there. Besides some unfortunate losses of old photos and board games, most of what sat in the drink did not suffer irreversible harm. As of Sunday afternoon, all the water is gone and with over 400 lbs. of Tubesand piled onto the drain, I’m hoping that no more can weasel its way back inside.

As soon as it warms up a bit, I’m planning on cementing this drain closed. While it was originally installed to get water out of my basement, it really does just the opposite, offering an easy entrance point. Like an arsonist firefighter, this drain is creating its own necessity and making me look like a bigger patsy than normal. Unless anyone has any other suggestions, let the “Cask of Amontillado” tribute begin!

Here in Maine we’ve decided to follow one of the snowiest Decembers on record with one of the warmest Januarys on record. The past few days have been in the 50s and nearly all that 2007 snow has melted away, leaving behind piles of dirty, icy slush and revealing surprisingly green lawns beneath.

Luckily, before Nature turned up the heat to MED-LOW, the fam went snowshoeing at Merryspring Nature Center in nearby Rockport. This gave me the chance to field test one of my best Christmas gifts: a pair of Coleman Exponent 8250 snowshoes. I tried to find a link for these, but Coleman has rebranded the product line and now disavows any knowledge of said product. That’s fine by me though, as they are great gear and a collector’s item to boot!

As I said, these snowshoes performed excellently in both packed down deep snow and mid-meadow snow drifts. I was able to maneuver down steep trails without slipping and could turn 180° effortlessly. They’re rated up to 200 lbs so it is a good thing I dropped down from my holiday 180 mark; I was carrying Hazel in our Deuter Kangakid baby backpack the whole time. I felt like Luke training with Yoda through the swamps of Dagobah.

Sadly, Megan’s snowshoes fell way below the acceptable line. Last year, she received a pair of L.L. Bean Winter Walker 21s, but barely used them save around the yard once because, you know, she was pregnant at the time. She was very jonesed to get on some real terrain this
winter, but these snowshoes failed miserably. The main problem is the binding. While my Colemans have bindings in the front, across the top, and behind the foot, Megan’s only had a heel strap and a binding clip across the bridge of her foot. This lack of a front strap caused much slipping. By the end of the day (we were only on trail for about an hour and a half), her right boot toe kept popping out of the binding entirely. Not only did this slow us up, but to compensate Megan had to arch her foot very awkwardly to keep the snowshoe on at all. If we were further away from our stopping point, she could have really messed up her foot, ankle, or both.

So the next time we’re in Freeport, we’ll be returning these to L.L. Bean in the hopes that they will have a worthwhile replacement model. It’s too bad, as living in Maine means a view of Beans that borders on idolatry. It’s like the golden calf just gave us sour milk and then
peed down our galoshes.

Still, we had a great time being outside with Hazel. Save for a handful of cross country skiers and one woman walking a terrier, we had the whole 66-acre landscape all to ourselves. Check out the whole photo gallery here and keep your de-mittened fingers firmly crossed that we get a little more snow this winter. We’re definitely not done playing yet and Hazel is still so darn hungry!

I can no longer completely ignore the 2008 Presidential Campaigns; now is the time to start paying attention so I can at least be an informed (if not still reluctant) voter this November. While I am a registered Independent, I do swing more towards the Democratic perspective on most issues. As such, I care more to find out about all the Democratic candidates while I’ll just wait for the Republicans to pick one guy for me to research and subsequently dislike.

Since you can watch the whole debate on Facebook, I’ll just give a brief synopsis of each major Democratic candidate still in the game, going in alphabetical order (by last name) so as not to show favoritism:

Hillary Clinton Hillary makes the best arguments by far of any of these candidates. Whenever the guys would get into a bombastic boondoggle, she would interject with exactly the right solution: one that is viable, achievable, and well thought out. Her failing is not in what she says, but how she says it. Hillary’s tone of voice cuts through your soul like a tyrannical librarian breaking up table talk in a library study hall. Some have said that the same verbal swagger and deliberateness would most assuredly be admirable in a male candidate, but we observed some proof against this societal bias last night; each time Hillary spoke, Hazel would whimper in her sleep in the next room.  Yes, against all signs her mullet hairstyle would give you, Hillary is business in the front and in the back.

John Edwards The nicest guy in politics, Edwards comes across as honest, earnest, and wholesome. I can easily figure out what he believes in and can rest assured that he will remain focused on his goals. These are all excellent qualities in a leader. But Edwards is also a pushover. I’m not saying that a headstrong maverick makes the best president, but having someone wishy-washy on the ballot will undermine any hope the Democrats have for a win in November. Plus, Edwards reminds me of Richard Davis from The Real Estate Pros. I half-expect Edwards to slap a USC visor on and declare, “We’re gonna go into Iraq and do a sugarcoat!”

Barrack Obama Obama carries himself like a president. He’s personable and intelligent, hitting all the issues with confident talking points in a voice that you instantly trust. However, I feel that trust may be unfounded and quite possibly naively given. Barrack is a lot like the popular guy in high school that knows everybody by name. He warmly greets each person he passes in the hall, but he never goes beyond the “What’s up?” smiling head nod. It’s all surface level interactions. His political inexperience rings true to this, but he is probably the most electable out of all the candidates.

Bill Richardson When Richardson first sat down for the debate, I thought that Horatio Sanz was punking Charlie Gibson. I couldn’t get the idea that Bill Richardson is actually Sanz out of my head all night, and I’m not saying that because both men are Hispanic. I’m saying that because both guys are overweight and don’t deliver prewritten lines very well. Despite being, as Richardson pointed out every time he had the floor, the only candidate “who has experience balancing a budget,” I cannot throw my support behind a man whose professional association routinely misspells their own titles. Gubernatorial? What are those state governors trying to pull?

You’re going to notice some changes here at FHTP over the next few weeks. I have been working offline on a new theme as this one is getting a bit stagnant for me. Things will look much the same, but the backend of things will be a whole lot sweeter. I wasted about three nights worth of time trying to get WampServer 2 up and running on my laptop. The idea is that I’d be able to make all my changes locally and then relaunch my blog without any public hiccups. While convenient in theory, Wamp gave me way too much trouble to spend any more time on it. It needed to be restarted often (along with my whole system), so is just not worth the slow burning frustration.

In other news, Maine is having one of its snowiest winters in a long time. In fact, our December snowfall totals almost broke all-time records from Portland up to Presque Isle. Rockland itself got about four feet worth of snow last month and since the New Year, we’ve been whacked with two more accumulating snow storms. My driveway is slowly shrinking with each snow clearing much like the way a NYC studio apartment gets tinier with each new tenant and subsequent fresh coat of off-white paint.

In fact, the driveway has gotten so tight that I got stuck yesterday morning at the very end, a mere three feet from the cleanly plowed street. I was just a half foot too far to the left and got stuck in a snowbank. After the first few spins of my useless front wheels, I found myself trapped deep within nigh insurmountable ice ruts. After trying pushing, pulling, cardboard under the tires, kitty litter, sand, and ice melt pellets, I finally broke down and called for a tow truck. It was fairly embarrassing, but it could have been worse (if I were wearing a tutu at the time).

So as changes start happening here, let me know what you think by comment or email.

And with the pop of 10,000 champagne bottle corks, the holiday season (and 2007 as a whole) is packed away and put up in the attic. I hope you bought enough mothballs.

Hazel’s first Christmas went swimmingly. Despite my worst fears of weird or useless gifts, everything she received has not only fit well into her daily regime, but also fits in our house without forcing us to install monkey bars on the ceilings for room-to-room transit. Of course, this Christmas did herald in what will be known heretofore as the Toys with Lights and Sounds Era. But that’s okay, as her Learnin’ Table does play La Cucaracha.

She also got loads of clothes. Even though those rectangular gift boxes always filled Young John with bitter dread and a sense of impending disappointment, now that I’m a parent, I think these are the best gifts she “opened” (the use of quote here recognizes that Hazel didn’t exactly open any gifts this year, but she was more than happy to eat the wrappings once removed from any gifts). She now has a full wardrobe again, which has been dwindling over the past few weeks as she continued to grow despite us telling her to wait until after Christmas. Hazel will be all set for another three to six months until she Hulks out again and outgrows her current staples like so many torn purple slacks.

We also made another Connecticut trip, this time during the day as opposed to our moonlight drive of last time. Hazel did phenomenally well on the 6-hour drive down; she even helped steer the car and read the maps when we attempted a shortcut in northern Massachusetts. But, with a mere 45 minutes left to go, she decidedly freaked out just outside of Hartford. I like to think this was in memoriam to the once mighty Whalers, but once we got off the highway for a closer inspection, her tears we probably caused by the massive poop in her diaper.

Not to downplay the visits from other folks, but it was great to see Jim again while we were both back in CT for the holidays. Despite being the person I talk to most (after Megan and Hazel), we haven’t seen each other since he came back east to be a groomsman in our wedding nearly five years ago! Jim, I’ll see you in another half decade; by that time Hazel will be old enough to knock out a few state high points (I’m thinking Ebright Azimuth and maybe Britton Hill).

Hope 2008 started off smashingly for you, the Internet. Now if you’ll excuse me, our new Roomba is stuck under the couch and I must extricate our new robotic family member.