Snowy cyclamens

It got grayer and colder yesterday as we headed towards dusk, and it started raining again. As we were finishing dessert and clearing off the dishes, someone looked outside from the kitchen door and shrieked, in mock horror, "It's snowing!" There were big, fat flakes illuminated by the porch lights, but the half-rain, half-snow was never enough to start the assembled into a panicked run for vehicles and home in advance of the "blizzard." We might be from Rhode Island, but we were no longer Rhode Islanders. There was nothing on the ground when everyone finally departed around nine, and there was very little snow in the air when I went to sleep around midnight. But sometime before dawn, the heavens opened up, and when I headed outside early, it was in the mid-20s and there was a genuine coating of white on the world. The last cyclamen blossoms looked bedraggled, but as soon as the sun came up and melted the snow, the garden flowers and their mottled leaves perked up and lived up to the "hardy" part of their common name.