Asphalt Angels
We got our first snow of the year on Saturday. The kids rank getting snow right up there with birhday parties, allowence day, or all-you-can-eat candy buffets. I rank snow around the level of getting my teeth cleaned, drinking diet coke or having someone pull my eyelashes out with tweezers. The IDEA of snow is very romantic. Very nostalgic. Very wintery. But the reality of snow is not so great--at least not in Seattle. This is not a ‘winter weather’ city. Here we are used to cold drizzly rain. We don’t have enough snow plows and people do not know how to drive in snow or ice. So even a minor snowfall results in dangerous driving conditions, abandoned vehicles and horrendous traffic. If more than a handful of flakes fall from the sky they cancel bus service and delay the start of school. If we get an inch or more, they just close the schools down and all those kids are stuck at home. I have nightmares of this from last winter. I won’t go into much detail, but ater winter illnesses, Christmas break, nasty wind storms, mass power outages and multiple snow days, we ended up with something like 21 days at home...in a row...mostly just me and the kids...
Fortunately, we did not get so much this weekend and by 1pm today the rain started and now there is just mushy slush everywhere. Yuck. But in the precious few hours we had snow on the ground the kids managed to get outside and have some fun in it. They are devastated that it is already gone. But I assured them--with a deep sigh and a forced smile--that this was just the first snow of the year and I’m certain there will be more snow days to come.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
