I have been looking out the window into a snow globe. There are big, puffy cotton balls of snow piling up on the sidewalk and in the trees. It’s nighttime, but the sky looks rosy. Light is bouncing off the snow, so the ground is brightening the sky tonight.
As I was walking the dog earlier, I was standing next to a streetlight and it looked as if the light was actually glitter spilling all over the ground. When the snow was sparkling I could see each individual flake resting peacefully beside all the other sleeping flakes. Snow seems almost magical on nights like this.
What tops the loveliness of new fallen snow is seeing the list of closings scrolling on the bottom of the tv screen. The snow becomes a menace and downright annoying when you still have to get up in the mornings. The daycare where I work used to close when the city school system closed. I would watch the school closings on the nightly news as anxiously as the school kids. If our system was announced, my house instantly became euphoric. There would be dancing and jumping and high-fiving. Who doesn’t love snow days?
I’m amazed at how drastically the weather pattern in my area has changed this winter. The past few months I have trekked through more snow, driven through more ice, and waded through more slush than any other winter in my nearly three decades. It’s probably been more snow than all the other years of my life combined.
The Infamous Blizzard of ‘93
The only thing I have seen is a single snowstorm deeper than the infamous Blizzard of ’93. Our snows this year have been half a foot deep or less. The blizzard by which everyone around here measures snowstorms was over a foot and maybe two feet in the mountains.
Any time it snows people start swapping their blizzard of ’93 horror stories trying to outdo each other with the terrible calamity the clouds thrust upon them. Some were without power for months and had revert to private eras cooking food on a fire in a cave. Others had to walk 50 miles in just their socks to get to their Aunt Sue’s house. She still had power and cable and had food enough to feed 20 people in case of a nuclear holocaust.
Then there are always the lame stories. Like the people who played Nintendo for 3 days and had to bologna sandwiches. If your story is that blasé, make up something better.
My own story is unique at least. The snow started the first day of my Spring break from fifth grade. When we woke up that morning, it had snowed, but just a few inches. My dad needed to go to his office for a while, so my two younger sisters and I went with him. On the way there, we stopped at the grocery store and got a few cans of Chef Boyardee and some sandwich stuff for lunch.
My dad works at a radio station. There were a couple of DJs there and few other office people. My sisters and I were playing in the prize vault room, which incidentally was one of the coolest rooms ever. The walls were soundproofed because it was a sound booth, so it didn’t matter how loud we were. There was an old piano in there along with 50 stuffed rabbits left over from the radio station’s Easter event.
After we were there an hour or so, another employee came in and said that the roads were getting impassible. We went outside with my dad and checked. There was no way we were getting out of the parking lot any time soon. The snow continued to fall throughout the day. It became evident that we were spending the night at the radio station along with the 10 or so other people who were there. There was one couch in the place. No blankets. No pillows. No toothbrushes. No shower. We slept in the conference floor.
The next day, it had snowed even more. We still weren’t going anywhere. We had some leftover sandwich stuff and a couple of cans of soup. We ate those the second day. That night we slept on the conference room floor again.
Day three, we still weren’t going anywhere. There wasn’t any soup left. The sandwich stuff was gone. Everyone else was out of the food they had. Vending machine food was all there was. We ate chips and peanuts. That night we slept on the conference room floor again still in the same clothes we had left home wearing three days before. Everyone else was just as stinky at least. Finally, the roads were clear enough to leave by the next morning.
Experimenting with Snow
The snows of this winter have treated me much better. I haven't lost power during any of the snows. The cable and internet haven’t even gone out. The worst thing that happened to me was having to stay an hour after closing time the night of the first snowstorm. The roads were jammed because everyone was trying to get home at the same time. It was taking the parents up to two hours to make a ten minute trip.
Driving on an especially icy day, I did slide into a curb. I was going fast enough to do any damage, thankfully. And those are my snow horror stories for 2010.
All the snow and ice that have been surrounding me have inspired a few articles. So, I guess they have served their purpose.
The first article is How to Make Snow Ice Cream. Snow Cream is a delicious concoction made even cooler because its availability is usually so rare. It is simple to make and most people probably already have the ingredients in their kitchens.
During the Blizzard of ’93, my grandfather made gallons and gallons of snow cream and put it in the deep freezer. In 2001, he still had some of it leftover and ate it on occasion. I certainly don’t recommend doing that, but snow cream is something everybody needs to experience.
In January, I did snow and ice projects with my class. We made an igloo from milk jugs. We also did snow and ice experiments. We played with salt and ice and made frost in a can. The kids were amazed by it. I made an article about Easy Snow and Ice Experiments that are good to do with children based on the lessons I had done with my class.
I frequently get questions about dry ice, so I decided to write an article about Using Dry Ice. It has basic information about dry ice, some of its uses, and some of the cool effects that can be created with it.
Magical Coat
Snow and Ice have been on my brain the last few months. Maybe it’s a pathetic fallacy or my romantic tendencies, but most I have caused snow to gravitate towards me because of the theme I chose for my class and the outside articles I have been writing.
I might also be causing the snow by wearing an enchanted jacket I have. My friends know it as my Snow Jacket. Every time I wear it, snow comes. It was great when we were in school. I would wear it when we wanted to get out of a certain test or paper. I would always save its power for only the most desperate situations.
Lately, though, I have been wearing it at night when I walk the dog. It is my warmest jacket and the nights have been very chilly. Maybe wearing it so frequently and with such abandon has caused global weather shifts. Since I don’t have any chance of getting snow days from work now, I am going to retire the Snow Jacket to the closet so I don’t bring another ice age upon us. Sorry for all the trouble I have caused with the snow this year.
And with that I am going to end my random snow musings. I guess I am officially an old, boring person now that I have an entire blog entry about the weather.
Posts
