Fine Snowy Surreal Days

Yesterday's weather reports were apocalyptic. Six to ten (or more!) inches of snow predicted. The local weatherman offered up three weather models that he must have pulled out of his ass. All three models predicted at least 8 inches of snow, AND, he said with a very hungry look in his eye, the most likely model will be the 9-11 inches. He followed that proclamation with raised eyebrows and a twisted puckered mouth--an expression reminiscent of Dana Carvey's "The Church Lady".

So yesterday afternoon as I was driving home from work, my gas gauge light blinked on. Damn. Five deep at the pumps. Damn, damn.

Let me just say that I have never, EVER succumbed to the impending blizzard grocery shopping mania. But as I was sitting in line for gas, it occurred to me that I could be missing out on something that so many other people seem to engage in. I could see the grocery store parking lot from where I sat idling in the gas line. The lot was packed. Suddenly, I decided that I absolutely HAD to have the ingredients to make French Toast: milk, eggs, bread.

The parking lot wasn't just packed. It was completely full. Vulturous SUVs and minivans wove in and out of the lanes. I got lucky in my small car. I found a spot that no minivan could fit into between two parking-morons. As I locked my car door, the first flakes were beginning to fall.

It wasn't too bad in the grocery...until the check-out. I thought five deep at the gas station was bad. I got to know the lady in line behind me quite well, actually.

In the twenty-five minutes between locking my car door and opening the trunk to put groceries in, about a quarter of an inch of snow had fallen.

An hour later--nothing. For hours--nothing. I went to bed, scoffing at the idea of "weather models".

This morning, we have about four inches of snow. It'll be gone by Monday, but for now, I celebrate what we have. See, I love snow. I love walking in it, and I really don't mind shoveling it. But don't (damnit!) tell me that we are going to have 10 inches of snow if we're getting only five. I've heard that promise before!

And here I sit at my office computer, blogging. Why? I don't want to touch those compositions I have to grade. I want to think about being outside while the snow is still falling gently. A few minutes ago, I opened a bottle of Dasani water. I held it in the light and watched the teeny bubbles rise to the top. They looked, at first, like snowflakes rising instead of falling. Then I moved bottle so that I was looking through a ripple in the plastic. The snowflakes looked like WWII airplanes spiraling upward. Then the airplanes turned into souls with their arms outstretched.

That is what snow does to me.

Fine Winter Days

A friend of mine has, within the last year, moved to a warm climate. It's such a very warm climate that, frankly, I feel sorry for her. This weekend, an arctic blast will sweep in from where ever arctic blasts come from. The temperature will be in the negative double digits, and whoo-baby! That wind chill will freeze your fillings, so keep yer yap shut.

So why, oh why do I "feel sorry" for my friend of the temperate climate? Because I'll just bet she's forgotten the intimacy one can have with one's windshield, of course.

Explain? Oh, dear reader, are you not from these parts? Well, let me tell you about car windshields and early morning frost.

There are different kinds of windshield frost, you know. There's the thick kind that's not terribly cold and doesn't stick to the windshield too hard. This kind of frost is easy to scrape off; it's almost fun. There's the frost that's stunningly beautiful with intricate snowflake-like images, jagged lightning-like shards, and delicate lacey window trim. I had that kind of frost to scrape about two weeks ago. I stood there staring at the beautiful patterns, my ice scraper in mid-air, not wanting to remove the artwork.

I've seen lots of other kinds of frost, but the frost that was GLUED to my windshield this morning is the most irritating kind to have. It's the kind that's thin, very cold, and stuck tight. I had to take my brass windshield scraper and try to get the "just right" angle to get this crap off. If I get the angle wrong, the scraper goes veering off across the windshield (with NO frost removal), or else I get this spine-yanking screech of metal against my windshield. Ack.

But when I get the angle right and the frost starts coming off--slowly--the act of scraping the windshield can become meditative. There's the idea of making slow progress. Yes, that can be oddly satisfying if I'm not freezing my ass off. But the other thing I've noticed when the frost is stuck that tight is the curve of my windshield. Huh. I'd never noticed that before. Now I know just where the glass is perfectly flat and the exact spot it begins its gradual curve toward the roofline.

I'll bet no one who "enjoys" 60 degree winters ever gets that intimate with a windshield.