Tyler Loved Snow!

Why am I writing about snow on September 24th?

Because the weather is FINALLY cooler!

Bring on fall!

The older I get (pushing 49 after all) the more I simply DESPISE summer.

Summer heat.

Summer humidity.

Summer bugs.

Particularly…. crickets. My part of Long Island is basically fucking cricket central, and if there’s ever a bug I hate more, it’s mother fucking crickets.

Don’t tell that to Mona, she’s the ULTIMATE cricket hunter. No cricket that dares get into our cozy home has a prayer when Mona is on patrol.

Anyway, fall through the holidays is my FAVORITE time of year.

I love fall.

I love Halloween.

I love Christmas.

With that being said, here’s an adorable little story originally published on my Blogger blog back in January of 2016.

Tyler’s First Snow.

Here I am, all bundled up with Jackson on my lap, watching the blizzard of 2016 blanket the region in white. Makes me think back to the winter of 2001, and Tyler’s first snow with me. I doubt it was his first snow ever, he was already a year and a half when I adopted him.

It was, however, my first snowstorm through the eyes of a cat.

Winter, 2001.

Tyler had been with me for about a month or so when we were graced with Canadian visitors. Back then, being in “the big house” that my parents had, meant we were the stopping point for our Canadian relatives on their way to destinations south. My grandfather grew up in Montreal and was the youngest of 7. What that meant for me was a lot of second, third, fourth, fifth and whatever removed cousins that I was somehow related to but barely ever saw or met. They did all have my old nose though. Oh, did I forget to tell you I had a nose job when I was 19? Yup, best decision I ever made. I went from looking like a young Jimmy Durante to a normal person again. The Canadian side of my family seemed to prefer looking like the toucan from the old fruit loops commercials. I did not.

We would make trips to Canada now and then, or they to us. All I really remember about my relatives up north is they always remarked how tall I had gotten and they seemed to always need me to carry stuff. It’s nice to be useful I guess but it never actually made me feel welcome.

When we moved to Long Island, and our house grew to include a few guest rooms and a fully furnished basement, suddenly these relatives saw our house as a bed and breakfast.

For this visit we had cousin Jack and his wife, whose name escapes me. He was my father’s age, a first cousin of his, so a second cousin of mine? I never knew that worked to be honest.

He was nice enough, sort of a Canadian version of Alan Thicke. Isn’t he also from Canada? You get the idea. Friendly, bad cologne, and laughed at my jokes.

Anyway, not long after they arrived, and began to eat us out of house and home, the snow came. Not a blizzard by any stretch as I recall but close. Enough snow to get us all huddled in the house together. If there was a flake, my parents did not move for days. DAYS. So, you can imagine their plan when more than a few flakes arrived.

Cousin Jack and wife were annoyed by the fact that we were stuck in for the night as I recall. Like we controlled the weather? They seemed further annoyed by the fact that all my father wanted to do was watch a movie.

His choice of movie? The Shining. One of THE best films ever made. It does involve being trapped in the snow, so the theme worked, didn’t it? Anyway, I recall the Canadians being bored with the movie, for that matter so was I that night. Tyler interested me more than Jack Nicholson losing his marbles in The Overlook Hotel.

I left movie night and decided to find Tyler. Feline company mattered more to me back then. For that matter it still does.

It didn’t take long for me to find him, sitting on his favorite rug watching from the kitchen sliding glass door.

Tyler was ENTHRALLED by the snow. Looking up, watching the flakes fall, trying to sniff the air like cats do, even though the sliding door was closed. It was like he was seeing snow for the first time, or seeing everything for the first time. His eyes were sharp, and his tail was gently beating the floor, a sign of intense interest. To Tyler, this was a movie.

I couldn’t help but smile.

I sat down on the rug next to my feline friend. He looked up at me, purred, and rubbed my leg in a sort of head-butt.

“Isn’t it pretty little man? I hope we get to watch many snow storms together, safe and warm.”

He purred even louder.

Here is Tyler in the winter of 2014, watching what would be his last snowstorm from the kitchen window of my old apartment:

Still enthralled.