Snow Big Deal

I'm almost embarassed at how easy my day has been, especially in light of conditions not far from here. In the City of Y______, snow totals were around six inches or so (approx. 15 centimeters), which is not unmanageable. I made a point of parking near a sewer grate, and spent a bit of time around 3AM shoveling snow around my car into the sewer (you'll drive no more, my lickle snowflakes!), and cleaning off my car. I was near an intersection, so I could back out of my parking spot onto the secondary road along which I dwell, just in case the plows didn't make it to the tertiary roadway on which I habitually park. I set the alarm for 7:30 AM, so I could check in on my co-worker who would be nearing the end of his sixteen-hour blizzard ordeal.

Having awoken, and discovering that the snow had ceased to fall, I threw on some sweats and commenced the shoveling out process. I shoveled the sidewalk in front of the house, and cleaned off the entranceway to the upstairs tenants' apartments. Then I proceeded to shovel the sidewalk in front of the neighbors' house (these neighbors are a woman who retired last year and her mother, can't leave them in the lurch when there's a blizzard), and the tenants who live directly above me, immigrants from Monaghan came out and shoveled the neighbor's front stoop. The neighbor across the street, a really nice guy from the Philippines, came out to fire up the old snowblower at about the same time, and we joked about how we always seem to end up removing snow at the same time. Funny, every winter I feel a year older...

I then took some more time to clean up the street around my car (it was still snowing when I was out around 3AM, and the streets hadn't been plowed), then called it a wrap so I could nap for a few hours before getting ready for work. Just listening to the weather reports, I was dreading the drive to work, so I gave myself twice the ordinary time for the commute. By the time I left the house, the sun was shining brightly on a winter postcard scene, a lot of the snow on the plowed secondary roads had melted, and the main roads were perfectly clean and clear.

The roads were so beautiful, and the traffic so light, that I actually got to work in less time than it usually takes. I was one lucky bastard today.