We had beautiful Fall Colours in October and November. Then the leaves started to fall. That was December. Balmy weather. Then came January. Still nice and sunny and cool at 60 degrees. What kind of winter was this, everyone asked? People still jogged on the streets in their tiny shorts, and middle aged pot bellied men still drove with their Mercedes convertible top down. Everyone was happy, including us. A friend cautioned - the average winter temperature always stays the same. If its warm now, there will be cold times. It always averages out, he said. We pah-ed his pessimistic talk and continued on our way.
Turns out, he was correct. Someone turned off the warm weather switch right about the 31st of January. Actually it was more like a shorted fuse, because almost immediately, there was wintery darkness and coldness and miserableness all in one.
And finally, last week there was the big storm. Paranoia set in about a week before. It made for all lunch conversations. The weather channel had a field week. The regular channels also took up the cause. Schools closed down. People took off from work (AKA worked from home). And yes, this time the snow did fall, the winds did blow. It was actually kind of beautiful when it was happenning (of course, I watched from a cozy indoor 72 degree spot). The white snow, softly fell, covering every visible surface like white powdery sugar coating.
Then came the fun part. After it was all over, we had to shovel the drive-way. Things we going against us -
1. Sub, Sub Zero temperatures
2. Cold wind blowing, which makes Point Number One look even worse
3. The afore-mentioned beautiful white snow, like white powdery sugar coating now had somehow transformed itself into hard, unrelenting ice
4. The plastic shovel (which we had to borrow from a kind neighbour), when making contact with the afore-mentioned ice, ricocheted back into the air with virtually no impact on the ice. It was like we were pummelling the ice with the shovel and nothing seemed to be happenning.
Things we had going for us-
1. Motivation - to get the damn thing shovelled, at least for one of the cars to be able to get out of the garage, or else we would be grounded until the temperatures rose and the snow melted of its own will (which was not going to happen for a long time)
I am glad to report that after what felt like a really long time, we finally finished the task, and lost a nose, 3 ears and half a lip to frost bite in the process. But Halleluja! We could finally drive the car in and out of the garage.
In less than a month, I have had enough of this Winter. I cannot wait for Spring.
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