An October Birthday and a Sudden First Snow

Our daughter's birthday, and she opened everything at the kitchen counter wearing the green triceratops hood, which stayed on through the whole thing — horns, spikes, the long plush arms trailing down over her striped shirt. Cards first, then the box in the heart-covered wrapping paper, which someone had reinforced with about six colors of ribbon so it took some doing to get into. A pair of earrings came out of the tissue. She read the envelope with her name on it before anything else.

Then Truckee did its Truckee thing: first snow of the season, and not a dusting. It came in heavy and stuck to everything — the big pines in the yard bent under it, and the aspens got buried before they'd finished turning, snow packed onto branches still holding yellow leaves. By evening the patio furniture was just white shapes. The hammock is still strung up under the pine, full of snow.