Thursday, December 23
Snow
Winter's back. Tuesday night we got perhaps a half-inch of snow, enough to cover everything but not hide the grasstops. There were big cartoony flakes falling last night as the kids I had did our holiday shopping. Snowing again when I broomed another inch of powder off the driveway this morning, and it was cold, too. Windy. Feel in in your gloved fingers cold. Freezes the inside of your nose cold. Snowplows have been out all night cold. Drive slowly into work, following lined up pairs of red taillights. Flat sheets and twisting strings of dusty wind-blown snow rush over the highway, swirling and racing an inch above the blacktop. Mirrored dusty whirlpools rise in the wash behind the car ahead of me. Clumps of snow fly off my hood, blinding for a microsec, then the wipers flip and brush it away. Tip-toe across the snowy parking lot, tucking my chin into the wind. It's a cold wind. Little drifts are collecting around the tumbleweeds stuck in the building corners, looking like sand in a minidune. Get to my desk and check: 3 degrees on the F scale, negative 16 on the wind-chill, gusts to 25 mph. Snow still falling. Yep. Winter's back.
