Mt. Sidewalk

It doesn't snow very often where I live. But recently, we had what was considered a doozy of a storm. The news (which I was watching [on accident] due to watching the Olympics while quilting) dubbed the weather cycle the "winter blast." I'm not sure I would agree, but it is the first time I have been snowed in like this. Didn't know it just took six inches to do me in, but it did.

First, it was cold. Really cold. Then I flew to LA while it started to snow, and had a "Winter Blast" of an interview, but that is another story for another day. My flight landed smoothly - a miracle, considering that there was already four inches. Several flights were canceled, but mine got in safely. Huzzah! Being without a coat because you weren't watching the news and you figured you would be fine in the few feet from the terminal to the shuttle bus and fine from the shuttle bus to the car is really silly, by the way. Then came the de-snowing of the windshield, and the fun trip through the winter wonderland that was the parking lot, and then onto the big main drag which had lots of traffic on it, and then to the freeway. Only once do I remember driving when the freeway was white. Dad had taken us to see LoTR in the stadium seating, so we had gone downtown. It was a little dicey, but we made it. Here, there was not a snowplow in sight, although it was clear that there had been one about an hour ago...on one lane of the freeway. The temperature had risen to about 25, but there the Ice-Wind Gnomes were marching from their Norway, and there were ghostly swirls of white headed every which direction. They were beguiling and suspiciously fractal-esque in their iterations, and I'm sure many a driver would have focused on the swirls in front of him and been lost, falling to the sirens, and failing Lesson #1 of Driving 101: Look as far ahead of you as you can, always.

It took almost two hours from when I got off the plane to when I got home, but I did make it safely. Only a few spinning spots. I took some extra precautions and I was really grateful...I saw a few accidents and several cars on the side of the road, but I was able to get home. Having no lanes while driving makes "passing" a little difficult. But I managed not to get hit, or hit anyone else, on the drive home.

It continued snowing and blowing all night, and when I woke up and started quilting, <--it looked like this.
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Then more snow came...and then freezing rain...and in the meantime I quilted and watched Olympics and was a little worried that I would run out of food, but kept warm and dry and mostly scare-free. I did do the prudent thing and make sure I knew where my flashlight was in case the power went out. There was one moment when the entire ice chunk that was the awning over the deck slid 8" down the roof, making a wrenching noise that scared me silly, but other than that I was scare-free...mostly because I didn't leave the house. At all.

On Monday, I was getting stir-crazy and so I went to shovel. This is the leavings of the sidewalk, piled up...drumroll, please: Here is Mt. Sidewalk! Looks suspiciously like Rainier to me, but whatever. Thank goodness S&J keep a snow shovel. It actually was a good thing I hadn't shoveled before, because the snow underneath the ice crust was still powdery...but if I had shoveled, it would have gotten iced and been at least 3x as hard to shovel.

Here's my handiwork. I sent this picture to a friend, with the caption, "Where I come from, we don't just shovel two little lines down the driveway so the car can get out. We shovel the whole driveway." It made me glad for all those hours we spent together as a family shoveling snow. Turns out shoveling is like riding a bike...once you know how, you never forget. I'm glad I learned how to do the job good and proper-like.

The next day, the streets were a bit slushy, but maneuverable. The day after that, the snow was gone. Mt. Sidewalk is no more, but there is a lot of green moss left behind in memoriam.