Sunday, March 9, 2008

Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland

Posted by Laura / 1 comment » / , movies, seasons, weather

On Friday afternoon around noon, it started snowing here. It was tiny flakes, which don’t amount to much in short stints. It kept snowing through Friday afternoon, into Friday evening, and when we went to bed on Friday night, it was still snowing. Considering we already had a couple of inches on the ground, it gave the snow a bit of a head start. Saturday morning, we woke up to see that it was still snowing! The flakes were bigger, and of course, a significant amount had amassed overnight. The snow finally began tapering off last night around midnight, and now we appear to be clear of the constant assault of frozen precipitation.

Given that this is my first real experience with snow in any significant quantity, I was fascinated all day yesterday just looking at it. It seemed to me that I was a child, discovering something for the first time. I even went so far as to demand that we go out and walk in it a little bit, just so that I could see what snow that high felt like. It wasn’t terribly high in some places, but where the snow had drifted, it came up to my hips. I will admit that it was a lot of fun wading through the snow, even though it meant bundling up with extra layers first, then stripping down almost completely when we got back in. (After all, I did, in fact, wade in up to my hips.) I tromped around in it just because I felt like it. It was wonderful except for the burning sensation that developed in my chest before we got back inside. As I understand it, if I were to be out in this kind of weather more often, I would grow accustom to it. It took a while for that sensation to go away, actually. No matter: it was fun, and despite knowing that we were snowed in (because no way are any of our maintenance people ever bothered to clear sidewalks on normal days so on a day with winter storm conditions I couldn’t expect them to come out and clear sidewalks or plow), I enjoyed seeing all that snow. I wouldn’t want it to be a normal occurrence, but I quite enjoyed it for the time being.

It brought to light, however, the fact that I am completely unprepared for this weather. In Portland, I could get by with a warm coat and some tennis shoes. It snows maybe once a year in Portland, and when it does, it’s equivalent to what here would be considered a light dusting. It’s rarely more than a couple of inches. So, while Johnathan was putting on his ski pants and boots, I was putting on two pairs of socks, my jeans and my tennis shoes because I just don’t have anything else to keep me warm enough. I’m sure we’ll rectify that for next year, but for the time being, I remain completely unprepared for winter weather. Thankfully, winter should soon be on its way out. Springtime, here we come!

Something that the winter storm did foul up was our plans to go see a movie this weekend at the Cleveland International Film Festival. I was really excited for that, since we’d picked out a few movies that looked interesting. Unfortunately, the one that I wanted to see only had showings on Friday and Saturday, so I’m out of luck for that one. Hopefully we’ll be able to pick out one or two for later in the week when the snow (hopefully) won’t prevent us.

All in all, however, yesterday was a good day. We may have missed the chance to see those movies, but we did watch a few of the ones we own, start a new video game and cook good food. (The best burgers we’ve made yet, some chopped zucchini and yellow squash, sautéed, and coconut shortbread!) It wasn’t our original plan, but it’s certainly not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

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