DISCLAIMER: This post has nothing at all to do with my normal topics of conversation, and is merely a rant about the weather patterns of northeast Ohio. Read at your own peril.
Ahh, the sight of a fresh blanket of white covering all as you glance out your window in the morning…
Is met with much less derision come December, not October 24. I mean, I know it’s Cleveland, and we’re in the snow-belt, blah-blah-blah, but really? Eight inches of lake-effect slop for the first snow of the year (and potentially still counting)? It’s supposed to be a light covering that melts by midday, just to kinda give everyone a heads-up “hey, it’s that time of year again, better put on your winter face.” At least give me some time to get used to it again. Not just me, but everything. C and I saw a huge ‘V’ of geese out in the snowstorm, honking loudly and looking rather bewildered as they headed south. I’m pretty sure they were thinking, “Wait’ll we hit South Carolina and find that lousy travel agent who wouldn’t book our flight for yesterday… said we had nothing to worry about…”
The trees clearly weren’t ready for it (half their leaves are still green!), as evidenced by the shrapnel lying all over the yard and multitude of power outages across the area, of which we were/are one (it was really kind of eerie being outside yesterday morning – since we have so many trees, every few minutes we’d hear the crack of another branch snapping followed by a whoosh of snow falling to the ground; needless to say, we stayed out in the open). We saw no fewer than a dozen trees bent over, tops touching the ground, a handful of which were normally 30-40 feet tall. “Okay, we submit, we submit! Just make it flippin’ stop already!” Yeah, they were thinking it. And yeah, that’s the second speech reference I’ve attributed to non-speaking objects. Hmm. Must be tired.
Okay, not everyone was disappointed. C looked out his window and just started yelling “It snowed, it snowed, wooooo!” – poor kid doesn’t realize that in about 15 years that’ll wear off and he’ll be just as downtrodden as the rest of us long-timers 🙂 Also fun – while we were looking out the window, the sky lit up for a good 15 seconds with what was either the longest lightning I’ve ever seen, or the glow of a transformer blowing. I knew then we were in trouble… The dogs had a good time too. I think Brando was trying to make snow angels, but didn’t move his front legs very well, so just ended up making a bunch of circles. About what I would expect from him.
But seriously, for all my pseudo-outrage, it wasn’t all that bad. The boys got to make a snowman while the girls watched from the (relative – no heat yesterday) warmth of inside. We had snowball fights. We all had a chance to sit around by the fireplace and just play and talk without any of the normal distractions of 21st century living. I got out my guitar and C drummed while we made up a song about the snow. I got to cook dinner outside over an open fire. I didn’t have to shower 🙂 All in all, we had a fun day, in spite of the inconvenience. And really, that’s all it was: a minor blip in our relatively cushy lives. When you’re forced to live “primitively” (and that’s a stretch) for a day, you appreciate the simpler things a bit more than you may have otherwise.
Of course, I don’t want to see any more snow for at least the next month, but even if that’s not the case, I’m pretty sure we’ll manage.
Leave a Reply