Oh, Snow. Here We Snow Again.

Going back to work this morning felt somehow perfectly normal and oddly unusual at the same time. Just a week and a half without working (or needing an alarm clock) is enough to throw my balance off a little on the return. The commute was on the irritating end of normal, with the snow mounds everywhere making it hard to see, especially at intersections, and lately there's an added 5-10 minutes every day because they didn't plow the end of one road wide enough for two lanes, so the "I'm just turning right" crowd has to wait behind all the left-turners. Traffic that used to be a couple of cars at most now backs up a block or more every morning. As you can imagine, kind of annoying.

Then, when I heard the weather forecast on the radio, I felt like crying. Can you believe, another snowstorm*? Another foot of snow? According to one source this afternoon, "North and west of Boston, 14 to 20 inches of snow from Tuesday and Wednesday is possible."

*Technically, this is apparently two snowstorms, not one, but I say if it's snowing Tuesday and it's snowing Wednesday, it's going to feel like one big storm.

When did this become normal? I'm quite certain that in past years, we got storms with smaller amounts of snow, at least some of the time. Two-four inches, or 3-5. Not 8-12 or 12-16, over and over. And there was some melting between storms, once in a while. (What a thing to be nostalgic for.)

Someone commented on one of the weather stories, "Ok, I know that it is winter and that we will get snow but the second coming of the Ice Age is not what I expected." Amen, brother.



If my memory serves me at all well, and I think in this case it does, this is the fifth storm in the last three weeks that has dumped significant snow on us. This season's snow totals are already about half again the average amount, and on a record-breaking pace. Good lord, mother nature, what did we do??


I guess, to try to look at the bright side, I won't be working for the next day or two, which will be pleasant for me and delightful to Carlos. I don't exactly have a desk full of work to make me feel guilty about it, even.

And I happen to have a nice big bottle of ibuprofen, the Shoveler's Friend, already on hand.

I can't think of any other bright sides, though. Can you? For me, that is. I know that skiers and other winter-sport enthusiasts* must be happy (once they get out of their driveways), and plow drivers are exhausted but have to be happy to be paying the bills, and if you own a hardware store, you're probably cheerful. But me? Not so much.

*Check out photo number 11 in that link: the skier and the jackrabbit!

And honestly, look at this picture from the local news station:


And tell me where we're going to put another foot or more of snow.

Because here's what I'm thinking: I'll stay home until it melts. Or they start foreclosure. Whichever comes first.