How Do I Hate Thee...

Winter, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways (in no particular order);

1. Snow. Pretty snow when it requires no driving (as it was on Saturday) is fine. But it must be gone from all streets, parking lots, sidewalks or any other hazardous place by Monday morning.

2. Melting & Re-freezing - see above (especially when one has to lug Baby Girl, a laptop bag, a lunch bag, a pumping bag - and this morning, a diaper bag - across said frozen water).

3. Inversion. A special winter evil in The Frontier.

4. Smog (worsened by inversion).

5. Hills - making 1 and 2 particularly nasty.

6. Dark mornings, dark commutes home.

7. Gray. When the valley fills with clouds, fog and even the mountains disappear - it's hard not to feel gray inside too.

8. Below freezing temperatures. I finally bought a good winter coat - just in time for my old coat from college to be located. Doesn't mean I like wearing either one of them.

9. Tourists. I liked tourists in DC (as long as they stayed off public transit and downtown streets during rush hour), but tourists in The Frontier are (generalizing, stereotyping - forgive me) generally hot shots who think they're coming to the world's most backward state to have a little fun, complain about the locals and then jet back to their fabulous McMansion.

10. Lake effect. Warm water + arctic air = LOTS of white stuff.

11. Bad weather forecasts. A chance of a "slight dusting" on Saturday morning turned into 10" along the east bench.

12. No snow days. At least before I could hope for a storm bad enough to close work. No more.

13. Dress shoes. I'm wearing my ugly (but oh-so-comfy) Aerosole loafers with the tassles and my clunky oxfords every day. They have rubber soles, slightly minimizing the fall factor. My cute shoes worked in VA because my car was garaged and snow was scarce.

14. Salt. Icky, saltiness covering everything.

15. Mountain passes. Bad storms render one virtually stuck in one place.