WINTER IS WEIRD

A friend came to the door today to pick me up for a walk, and when I opened the door for her, I laughed! I could hear her snow pants swishing each time she took as step, and she was wearing a parka over that. She had warm boots on her feet, a tuque on her head, and expedition mittens on her hands. This would have been totally reasonable winter wear on many occasions, but I had checked the weather in advance for the occasion of this walk. Sleet is where I draw the line, although it’s not much fun when it’s minus twenty with windchill. If you do dress properly, you can’t really hear each other talk!

In this case, it was just a couple degrees below zero, and it was going to melt in just a few hours. I am glad this friend doesn’t hold grudges, because she laughed it off when I commented. Still, I wore my lightest coat, with medium gloves and a coat, but by the end of our walk, I was sorry that I had a vest over my long sleeve shirt. I was feeling warm!

Later that day, another friend asked me how I was weathering the blizzards. I wrote her back, “In our day, we just called it snow!” This was not the first time this week that I had been asked about it. I get it. If I was a long distance trucker, I would try and plan my routes around the winter storms. But for a commute downtown, and a home with a moderate sized driveway, these “winter storms” that are called for sometimes days in advance, really just feel like, on the ground, that it is finally snowing.

The game is to know when to clean your snow, and when you are wasting time. I have a retired neighbour who cleans any snow any time, usually very early in the morning. He doesn’t need to be efficient. Another retired neighbour who had mobility issues after a stroke before he died had the opposite tack. He would only clear his walkway if it was worth the effort. He knew that it was better to leave snow than uncovering the slick ice rink underneath it after frozen rain. 

I have started to park my car, without fail, nose to the street, with only a few feet ahead, to allow for the hard pack snow that inevitably gets pushed up in hills at the bottom of my driveway by the city. There are tricks to this. Best to get it in warm weather. The snow is heavy, but if you get home late from work, or are not paying attention, and the soft heavy snow turns solid, you have an insurmountable ridge of ice that tears at the undercarriage of your car.

The street cleaning is another issue. As much as love how well our streets are cleaned in the suburbs compared to the city, there is no respecting the silence of winter. It is nearly midnight, and, like too many a sleepless pre-night sleep, or interrupted short sleep post evenings or pre-early mornings, I hear the repeated loud racing of a snow blower down the street. Every year these sleep deprived speeding maniacs kill a number of innocent pedestrian because of their recklessness. They sure have ruined many  a good sleep in the ten second run they take at the snow, late at night, or in the early morning, when the world is otherwise in its most peaceful season.

They sit in short sleeves, idling their cabs, polluting the world for our convenience. How I long for the days where the roads were blocked until people were able to shovel themselves out. As long as I am able, I will stick to the quiet carbon neutral habit of shovelling the snow.