I’m not a “winter person.” I get cold easily. In fact, I’m sitting here writing this 4 hours after I got home tonight and I’m still wearing my down jacket. It is cold in here.
Snow in Boulder
Personally, I like the winters where it snows a lot in the mountains so the view looks pretty and the ski resorts have good conditions, but it stays dry down here. When you work and you have kids in school, the snow is really just a pain in the ass. Late starts, spinning tires, longer commutes, shoveling walks. And yet, did you know that some people…some adults…hope for snow? I’m not talking about hoping for a powder day at Breckenridge. I mean these people hope for snow on a Tuesday when they are not going to play hooky and trek up I-70.
Really? You want to wear boots and carry your office shoes? You want to spend two hours in bumper to bumper traffic for a drive that usually takes 25 minutes? So then you can turn around and do the same thing 5 hours later when it is time to try to get home? You like to spend 15 extra minutes in the morning looking for your kids’ gloves and snow pants that fit?
Wow. I envy you and your childlike, wide-eyed wonder. I envy your ability to see falling snow as anything other than an accumulating mess of inconvenience and frustration.
Already we have had a fair amount of snow down here and almost all of it has fallen between Monday and Friday. Weekend snow storms are fine. If it only snowed on weekends I could deal. If I ever get three wishes from a fairy godmother or a genie, that might be one of them. Another one would have something to do with never getting another zit as long as I live. That and world peace, probably.
Well, tonight I was driving home and the snow was doing that thing where it comes right at the windshield, making you feel like you are in a kaleidoscope or some sort of alternate reality. No, you don’t get that feeling? Just me?
Well, I had that feeling tonight and it freaked me out. I felt like I was moving in slow motion. And I guess I was since I was driving about 30 mph on a road where I usually do 50. It was dark and the snow was coming right at me in giant flakes. I kept thinking “if this was a movie, this scene would not end well.”
I had a pit in my stomach, my knuckles were white. I sat really, really close to the dashboard peering intently over the steering wheel. I concentrated on the road but it was sometimes hard to see past the hood of the car. And every few seconds I’d look in my rear view mirror to make sure the car behind me wasn’t too close because it stresses me out when I know I’m holding up the cars behind me.
I didn’t even change the radio station when the Doobie Brothers came on.
And while I was creeping along, staring at the tire tracks and trying to calm my breathing, I kept thinking about the boys and how I really, really had to make it home to them. And how much it would stink if I got in an accident on my way home from work. Then, I began to wonder how serious of an accident we were talking about and maybe if it was bad enough, but not too bad, maybe I’d get to stay home with them for a couple of days.
Obviously, I got home safely. I joined the boys eating dinner and watching Gnomeo and Juliet. I snuggled in and cuddled up. And the snow kept falling outside. That’s when I noticed how pretty it looked.
