All The Tiny Little Screams

This photo used under a Creative Commons license.

As winter drags on its January clothes, I identify one of the things I detest the most about the season: The piling of snow.

Snow does not merely fall. It clings. As the season wears on, I have not only to shovel the flat part of the sidewalks and driveway, but also the walls of the chasms that build as the snow deepens, else soon the driveway will be as narrow as the sidewalks and the sidewalks nonexistent.

Snow piles up on the cars. I hate that the most. When we came home from Arizona a few weeks ago, my truck was covered with at least six inches of snow. I had to clean it off before I could drive to the bus stop, and, even now, bits of that snow are still clinging to the truck, underneath the new layer of snow that just fell overnight.

I feel closed in and claustrophobic with all that snow about, and driving a vehicle still half-buried -- even if it's only the perception -- makes me mad. I feel oppressed, as if I were driving through an avalanche. A few mornings ago, I was driving the truck to work, struggling to scrape the inside of the windshield as the defroster struggled to warm up. Suddenly I drove into a bank of fog. Scraping at the windows while driving through fog all the while feeling oppressed by the mountains of fluff on the ground and on the truck nearly drove me into a ditch. Only the thought of having to drive the 178 miles to and from work kept me going so I could get to the bus stop and peacefully fall asleep in a vehicle that has enough headroom and width and length to push the snow away, even if it's cold enough inside I dream I'm driving to work inside a refrigerator.

My sister today posted on her Facebook page saying she's not been sleeping well last night because of all the noisy snow. I know how she feels. I wouldn't mind the snow if I couldn't hear all the tiny screams as the flakes fall.

PS: The only one good thing about continued snow is that it does drive the Sootis from their natural habitat.

Exploded Snowmen

Yesterday, I took a shovel and hacked the two last piles of snow in the yard to pieces. I even flung some if the snow into a completely different part of the yard, where the sun shines longer, to make the snow melt faster.

Yesterday, when we returned from our walk, it looked as if a couple of snowmen had exploded in the front yard.

Today, the snow is nearly gone. The carnage, the evidence of my shovel-murders, is disappearing.

Snow, Go

I'm happy to see the snow going.

Seeing the first patch of lawn, just a few weeks ago, thrilled me. Some errant child's footprint, increased in size by the sun's stronger rays, exposed the brown grass below. Then more footprints. Then a path. The path from the sidewalk to the woodpile. Aided by sun striking the warm concrete, the banks of snow bordering the sidewalks shrank, widening the swath between the hills. Then, the hills became isolated mountain ranges of filthy snow, isolated, ripe to be taken apart by the shovel, which I did with glee.

Now, the back yard is nearly free. The children rediscover the joys of the swing set, the bicycles, the playhouse. They get out the baseball mitts, bats, and balls. And the picnic blankets.

In the front yard, less progress. The neighbor's massive pine tree casts a long shadow over the yard. The snow hill the neighbor piled up for us is shrinking, to the point the sleds on the porch -- which traveled down the hill millions of time -- are superfluous. Enough snow melts I can begin removing Christmas lights; the rest will likely come down this weekend.

Goodbye, snow. At this point, I can't say I'll miss you.

Wednesday. Whoopee.

Addendum:

I've been asked to define what my "sensibilities" might be. I've thought long and hard about the question. This is the most popular answer among my many personalities: When it comes to politics, I'm convinced, along with P.J. O'Rourke and Dave Barry, that the people running for office don't stand a chance of really making a difference because the Washington bureaucracy has been there so long, plugging away, sucking in innocents only to devour them, like that creature in Clark Ashton Smith's story of the banker baited to his death by a tumbling trinket. By voting for someone, anyone, into office, I'm surrendering my sensibility that they can actually get anything accomplished without their accomplishment becoming a mish-mash of compromise to the point it's unrecognizable. I know that makes no sense. But neither does politics.

Just a few thoughts this morning:

• Super Tuesday: So my boy didn't win. Or win as big as he'd hoped. He won about as big as I thought he would. We likely have a GOP front-runner who has a real weenie voice.
• I will still stick with Mitt. When he eventually loses the Republican nomination, I can then cross over to the Democrats (no matter who wins that contest) with a conscience clear of offense to my sensibilities.

It snowed nearly another foot overnight. My truck, again, looked like it had been at Ground Zero when the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man exploded all over Central Park West.

I have given up on parking at he movie theater to catch the bus in the morning. I'm now parking at another stop where the parking spots are not contested and the area is actually plowed. No more wading through foot-deep snow for a parking space. Now only if I'd remember to remove the parking brake when I have to back up to let the snow plow do its job.

I leave now to complete my homework assignments.