Around here a dusting of snow gets everybody all worked up. There was a huge headline in this morning's paper just to announce the possibility of snow in the lowlands (anywhere not in the mountains, where it belongs). We have a love/hate relationship with snow where I live. Skiiers, snowboarders, and snowshoers pour over snow reports daily (hourly!), trying to time the best 'powder' at the resorts. On snowy days, the rest of us just try to guess whether we will make it to work and back. Or to the grocery store, where we need to stock up on supplies in case we can't get out again for a day or so. And no one really knows how to drive in the snow here. It's bumper car time.
I used to find all of this laughable. Hello! I grew up in northern Illinois. Snow falling and snow plowing went hand-in-hand. Salt trucks dumped de-icer in quantities huge enough to immediately turn snow and ice into slush to be scooped away by the plows. Of course there were times when the snow fell so fast and so heavy and so thick that things sort of came to a standstill there too -- but we are talking like 6-12-18-24 inches of snow, not one inch, which is all it takes to cancel schools and panic people here.
I moved from the Chicago area in 1980, first to South Carolina and the relative balmy Christmases of sunshine and beach walks; then moved here to the damp, drizzly, and green, green, green Christmases of the Evergreen State. I still miss a white Christmas season, so if it's going to snow, this would be the week to do it.
As long as it doesn't interfere with my holiday haircut.
At least, that's the view from here....©
