After the Storm

Snowed in, but okay,

Lights, food, and heat, all we need.

Plow is on the way.

That's a haiku, and yes, I have too much time on my hands.  We have just ridden out the storm that is being called snowzilla by the residents of the mid atlantic region.  We didn't lose power, we had no damage to anything, kids have been playing in the snow and we have had plenty of time together.  We are lucky, and I thought it would be a good moment to mention that before I start poking fun at all the absurdities of human behavior.

To the grumps and the cranks.  Those of you who don't want to see pictures of snow on facebook and hear all of our drama, just don't look.  This is a big deal in this area, and no Erie and Buffalo, we don't want to hear about how well you handle snow, and how this "Blizzard," is like a daily occurrence where you are, you live in the lake effect zone, which means you experience a ridiculous amount of snow, good for you, go play hockey or something.  Here in Maryland they aren't quite as prepared to deal with this sort of thing, you know why?  Because we don't have to, except once every three or four years.  All things considered that's pretty much a selling point of living in this area: we don't experience catastrophic levels of precipitation very often.  And don't bother chiming in with your super sub zero temperatures Wisconsin and Minnesota, also things we would rather not have the honor of living with.

The reason why so much of the population of this country lives in the area between DC and Boston is because, on the balance we have it pretty good.  We have seasons, and yes, winter is one of those seasons.  It gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter, leaves change and snow happens, when we remember to stop freaking out about things, we're pretty much okay with that.  It is a great comfort to know that people can learn to adapt to extreme climates, it speaks well of our future, given that we're in the process of jiggering our climate all up, which means more stuff like this happening.  But dude, don't negate my experience just because you live on Hoth.  My two wheel drive is every bit as stuck as my 4x4 would have been in Western PA.  Oh, yeah, I almost forgot that I lived in a place where driving a Jeep wasn't just a fashion statement, for 13 years as a matter of fact, add the four and half I spent in State College, and you've got a pretty good stretch of living with this sort of nonsense.

So maybe I don't freak out quite as bad as some of the rest of the folk down here, but let me tell you, community counts for a lot of how well you handle this junk.  In Plumville we knew three or four people who had tractors and plows, and we both drove four wheel drive cars.  We never got snowed in there, because we had help, and because we knew we were going to have to deal with snow, here maybe not so much.  We've been here three years and this the first time we've gotten a snow that we honestly can't really dig ourselves out of in about an hour, and we probably shouldn't be out cruising around now anyway, the roads are not clear, because the state and county government has about the same attitudes toward this sort of event as most of the residents: it doesn't happen that often so just deal with being a little inconvenienced when it does rather than spending the money on material, personnel and equipment that say Rochester NY needs to spend.

For the most part, a lot of our ruckus about this is mostly fun and games, we're on an uncontrollable holiday, everything is cancelled, kids are home, parents have to cook actual food and we have to stop running, which is another novelty for folks in this part of the world.  In addition to being wusses about snow, we are also super busy and don't get four days of down time hardly ever, unless we're on vacation and then we probably make all sorts of plans, and basically busy ourselves up with "getting away from it all."  Sometimes we need an act of God to get us to slow the heck down.

So I'm thankful for these past few days, and I'm waiting on that plow.