Screamin' Cold

      As the bitter cold and deep snow goes on and and on, I find myself less willing to get out and deal with it.

     Oh, deal with it I have, from shoveling and snow-blowing and running my car a little up and down the alley on Sunday to jouncing out into the ruts on Monday to get to work.

     Monday, I carried a snow shovel.  Just in case; but our neighborhood streets had not been plowed, and I had my suspicions -- suspicions that were confirmed when I returned home.  The city had called in their contact plowing services, which mostly consist of people who own large trucks with a snowplow blade on front, with which they pick up some extra winter cash clearing parking lots and driveways.  They're fast and enthusiastic in response to the city-funded windfall, and one of them had plowed up a nice wall of snow at the entrance to our alley some time after my neighborhood SUV drivers had all returned home.

     I turned around at the intersection and parked with my headlights on the ally entrance and flashers running, wrapped my heavy scarf around my face and got out the shovel.  A couple of slow passes in each direction got a car-width of the wall knocked down, and after one more, it wasn't any higher than the ridge of snow between the ruts.  I backed my car off, made sure it was in "winter traction" mode, swung wide and took the snow as square-on as I could manage.  My old Lexus mini-SUV plowed right through!

     My tolerance for that kind of tiny adventure is fading.  I'm leaving the house with four layers of tops under my coat, double socks, multiple pairs of gloves so I can keep warm spares inside my coat or between the heated car seat and my legs, and there's just no margin for trouble.

     We're now in the coldest part of the week and I think I'm out of heavy jeans.