Here we are, in the pink

A nor'easter is coming! A nor'easter is coming!

Sometimes, when the weather-guessers are predicting a big storm, I drive to my local grocery store to commune with my frantic fellows. I am not there to shop. In my New England town, the plows usually start rumbling by before the snow stops and I can get out to buy any food I need within a few hours of the big blow.

But it’s fun to pretend a weather event needs my attention. While I carry my basket up and down the aisles, I notice what is popular (hamburger, toilet paper, and pasta) and what is not (fruit and vegetables). I do not live among health nuts, and sometimes, I do not think I live among New England natives, either. From the flurry of activity before the flurry of snow, I sometimes think I live among transplants who continue to get up in arms about big weather.

Don’t we do this every winter? Are we all new here?

As I write this, Connecticut dwellers are told to expect anywhere between four and 12 inches of snow. The difference comes down to an enjoyable bit of shoveling — just enough to work up a sweat — and multiple (and cold) trips out to keep the driveway clear. With four inches, the snowplows are your friends. With a foot of snow, it’s hard not to curse them when they push an icy, heavy mess into the path you just cleared.

As meteorologists talk about the European model (in which we get walloped) and the American one (a relatively light dusting), we parrot them and pretend we know what we’re talking about, kind of the same way some of us talk about economics and politics.

Anywhoo: The larder is full, the shovels are on the porch, and I stand ready with my most comfortable jammies to binge-watch “The Righteous Gemstones,” whom I truly believe my brothers and I could have been had we had a little more talent and a lot more fraud in our hearts.

So long as I retain power, I shall spend the time in fruitful reflection (and baking and eating banana bread) while the snow falls gently outside my window, stopping at a manageable amount, and just enough to make the roads pretty. That’s the dream, isn’t it? Gently-falling snow and the smell of banana bread filling every corner of the house. May you enjoy something similar, whatever is raging outside.