Holy Snow

I've lived in Wisconsin most of my life so you'd think I'd be used to snowstorms at this point. Yet that monster that hit us the other day? Unbelievable. I cannot remember the last time I have seen so much snow. It was reminiscent of those stories that ended with "And then after our chores, we'd walk eight miles to school through twenty foot drifts. We weren't like these wimpy kids today."

Pajama clad with coffee in hand, I watched from my window as the plow came through and created a two foot fence of sorts alongside my car. I just laughed. Where else was all this snow going to go?

Later in the day, I joined in on the neighborhood camaraderie, digging out my car amidst the buzz of snow blowers and the scraping of shovels on concrete. The shoveling was actually not as bad as I had suspected. (Someone can tell you, though, that I whined for a good hour about my impending pain and suffering before I actually got out there. And yes, my muscles now feel as though someone took a club to my back.) Luckily, though, the snow wasn't that awful, heavy wet stuff. Plus I think that all those years, lifting chunky babies has actually done something for my upper body strength.

Also, the weather was surprisingly mild. Sunny and still. I wasn't even wearing a hat for God's sake and I'm always cold. I found that I didn't even mind the shoveling. Good exercise. Plus there was a pang of "I am woman, hear me roar" as I dug out my entire car by myself. But then I heard some birds singing and my heart sunk.

So let me get this right. We just had a blizzard which included disconcerting crashes of thunder and yet twelve hours later, I could hear the birds? And this was only twelve hours before the temperature plummeted to wind chills of minus twenty? But according to some, the way we have treated our planet has no way led to such odd changes in worldwide climate. (Umm, didn't Texas even get hit with a good chunk of this storm?)

Now I'm not going to attribute every snowstorm to global warming and climate change but have you ever heard your parents talk about what the weather was like when they were kids? I know for the Midwest, the previous generation paints a very different picture. I find it both fascinating and heartbreaking. I'd like to hear the birds sometime in March, thank you very much. And as long as the snow isn't coming in July, I can handle it. Thank God it's so darn pretty.