A Tale of Two Snowstorms

The last time I had to deal with measurable snowfall was on Valentine's Day. At the time, I was a world away from where I am now - figuratively and geographically. Our parents had just received the card in the mail, informing them of their new grandchild-to-be. I hadn't yet been laid off. There was nothing to suspect the status quo would change.

I walked out to my car to discover the two feet of snow pushed up against it by the apartment complex's snow plow, valiantly spend the next hour trying to make a path out of the mound so I could go to work. I was freezing. I didn't have a shovel. I wasn't in the mood to deal with snow in the wilds of DC. So I gave up, made hot cocoa and told work I was going to work from home.

Yesterday, as I was heading downtown for a meeting, it started snowing. Big, white, soggy, wet flakes. By the time I left, it had already made a noticeable impact on the landscape - creating slushy roads and cautious, slow-moving traffic. I caught myself thinking, "If I was still in Virginia, my office would be closed and I wouldn't have to work."

I went to bed last night, lulled into slumber by the voice of the weather man talking about lake effect snow and an increased prediction of how much would stick. I woke up to a silent, winter wonderland of white. I bundled Baby Girl into her newly acquired Santa outfit (because it's very, very warm and ridiculously cute), grabbed my laptop bag, my pumping bag, the mini cooler for her milk, Baby Girl in her carseat and my water bottle (I later remembered I had left my lunch sitting on the kitchen counter - heaven only knows how I managed to forget one more thing ...). I schlepped it all upstairs, opened the door, and realized that, since we no longer live in an apartment complex, there is no one to shovel the walks for us. No matter. I trudged through the snow, buckled Baby Girl in, started the car to keep her warm and surveyed the landscape.

Determining that there was not enough snow to actually warrant shoveling, and risking a very icy return after the stuff had melted and refrozen, I cleaned off the car windows and began my journey. As I drove, I again drew a parallel to my last snowstorm. While the majority of the snow on my route had fallen in the middle of the night, the roads were nothing more than wet. Clearly they had been treated and plowed. I thought, "If I was in Virginia, the roads would be awful, the office would be on a delay and half the people would call in because they couldn't actually drive in the stuff."

But I wasn't, and The Frontier is quite adept at dealing with the snow. The drivers, while probably not any less goofy about driving in it, at least have generally lived here long enough not to panic at the first sight of a snowflake. The schools stay open, the businesses stay open, the world keeps on moving. Whiteouts, power failure, blizzards - nothing stops this place from trudging on. I think it's all those pioneer stock, who feel the need to push on through anything.

No more will I sit, with childlike energy, willing the weatherman to predict a snowstorm - because no more will the mere mention of a snowstorm mean partial days, working from home or complete closures.

Instead, Himself and I will rummage through the shed to find the salt and the snow shovel. Winter has arrived.