Wait! Before you tune in the news and hear the same stories (12 vehicle pile up on such and such highway, kids look forward to a day off from school, family survives in a drift drinking baby formula, etc.) look at my storm.
Over thirteen hours of precipitation. Giant Coffee Man announced, "Snow's here" at a little past ten in the morning. At that time it was sleet. Little bits of ice landed, melted, and quickly refroze. All horizontal surfaces became instant hazards. Frankly, Evil Debbe thought this part was a gas. I kept hoping to see the eternally skate boarding boys or the bike riding drunks fall flat on their asses, but those events did not happen.
Sometime before dark the real snow began in earnest. Frenzied swirls visible only in the limited shine of the parking lot lights.Why is that? I KNOW I can google it, but I prefer to mentally speculate (see Free Entertainment reference elsewhere). Some drag coefficient multiplied by refractory property? My own ponderous mind combined with failing eyesight? Doesn't matter. The wind carried the stuff off the garage roof across the street and dumped it...where? I could not detect one flake, not one crystal mind you, near my actual building.
And yet. There it is. The lawns are smooth and level. No sidewalks. No pathways. No trails left by pooping/pissing/endlessly barking dogs. The sounds are not muffled; there is simply no sound at all. There is not a new description in my head. And so I dip my fingers through the tear in the bottom of the screen and scoop up a handful of the good packing snow. Squeezable and chilly. I am delighted. And I eat it.
It tastes just like childhood. I am out after dark watching my dad and brothers and probably the other dads in the neighborhood shovel the gravel driveways by the light from the front porch light. Nobody is even cold.
Over thirteen hours of precipitation. Giant Coffee Man announced, "Snow's here" at a little past ten in the morning. At that time it was sleet. Little bits of ice landed, melted, and quickly refroze. All horizontal surfaces became instant hazards. Frankly, Evil Debbe thought this part was a gas. I kept hoping to see the eternally skate boarding boys or the bike riding drunks fall flat on their asses, but those events did not happen.
Sometime before dark the real snow began in earnest. Frenzied swirls visible only in the limited shine of the parking lot lights.Why is that? I KNOW I can google it, but I prefer to mentally speculate (see Free Entertainment reference elsewhere). Some drag coefficient multiplied by refractory property? My own ponderous mind combined with failing eyesight? Doesn't matter. The wind carried the stuff off the garage roof across the street and dumped it...where? I could not detect one flake, not one crystal mind you, near my actual building.
And yet. There it is. The lawns are smooth and level. No sidewalks. No pathways. No trails left by pooping/pissing/endlessly barking dogs. The sounds are not muffled; there is simply no sound at all. There is not a new description in my head. And so I dip my fingers through the tear in the bottom of the screen and scoop up a handful of the good packing snow. Squeezable and chilly. I am delighted. And I eat it.
It tastes just like childhood. I am out after dark watching my dad and brothers and probably the other dads in the neighborhood shovel the gravel driveways by the light from the front porch light. Nobody is even cold.
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