Global Warming, My Ass

Well, beloved readers, I wish you a very belated Happy New Year. There is a reason for this: I have been preparing a very special 2010 New Year's Blog, and it's been taking a lot longer than I suspected it would. Lots of pictures to take, and some of them not so easy to come by. Oh well, you'll see.

However, I'm breaking in early to report on the abominable state of the weather here in the Great State of Maryland (the Honorable Martin O'Malley, Governor). I know that many of you, Dear Readers, live in the Great State of Florida (the Honorable Charlie Crist, Governor) and other milder climes, and I would like to briefly (ha) hold forth about the horrors of the Frigid North.

A young friend of mine, Mr. Keith Norman, was telling me recently that he would like to live "up north where there's snow". Mr. Norman, of course, is a Floridian, and has no idea what terrors he wishes upon himself. So now, a photo gallery of sorts, with pertinent paragraphs included, the better to illustrate the way that it really is.

(I would like to comment here that if anyone from Minnesota or Vermont or someplace where it gets really, obscenely cold happens to be reading, please have a good time reading about what a nancy I am for complaining about only three feet of snow and ten degrees Fahrenheit. I know you have it worse. I too have been told horror stories.)

First off, let's talk about transportation. We'll start with transportation on foot, I think. Our apartment complex has mechanical implements I call "snow mowers", because they look and operate a lot like lawn mowers, but instead of cutting grass they clear paths in the snow. You can see here that they haven't brought them around our building (yet? I can only hope). Instead we have this path, worn into the snow by many pairs of boots, much as a path in the woods is worn through the underbrush.

My own front walk I dug out by hand with a bucket (more on the bucket later). It has now become an icy flume of Death, almost impossible to negotiate without slipping even while wearing combat boots (my Chucks are right out). I did, however, get the opportunity to build this snowman. His name is Frank. Semper Fi.



Moving right along to transportation with vehicles. Regrettably, I am unable to furnish the sort of vista of cars each buried under two or three feet of snow, but I don't get up very early in the morning and most people had already begun the laborious process of shoveling out their cars by the time I got out to the parking lot. Here's the best I can do to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.


And here are my two vehicles. You'll notice that each of them is clear of snow (except, of course, for half of the Cooper), and has space enough to walk around and open the doors. Also notice that between eight and twelve feet of snow separates them from the narrow snow-plowed alley in which we're intended to drive them. And there's the bucket! I'm proud to say that we are indeed recycling our snow, to provide pure drinking water for the people of Haiti in this their hour of need. (I could be using an actual snow shovel for the task of freeing the cars of snow, but I would need to own a snow shovel first. Poor preparedness... I'll be lucky if they don't revoke my Eagle Scout over this.)



And road conditions are really quite deplorable, in a general way. I have heard people spinning their tires with squealing engines trying to get out of their parking spaces - even after they had purportedly been dug out! Also the scene of three men pushing a car while the driver tries to move it out from a "dug out" spot did not inspire my confidence. The fumes of overwrought engines and the shoutings of "Give it a little more! Stop it, stop it, stop it!" filled the air like the effluvient of a battlefield. Which, of course, it almost was.

Even the streets that have been plowed are treacherous at best. I walked down several of them to get to the grocery store that is mercifully only a mile or so from our house. The best of them were covered in an icy slush; the rest in a patchy hard shell of ice and rime. I had trouble even walking down them (fell and hurt my hip a bit, but no whining), and the only alternative was to slog along through snow up over the knee where the sidewalks used to be. If you ever have the misfortune to try this, you'll find how exhausting it can be. I know. Bitch, bitch, bitch.

This, however, is no joke. I almost put my eye out yesterday evening. I walked out of my front door, and ended up with this two inches from my left eye:



Pretty frightening. I avenged the near-loss of my precious orb by knocking down all the icicles, great and small, with a shovel. It was especially satisfying to kill the baby ones.

Well, I'm pretty much winded. The time has come to tackle that eight to twelve feet of snow standing between me and vehicular freedom. I can say, very truthfully, that I would not wish this upon anyone.

And those of you in Florida... please don't wish it on yourselves.

(I'm talking to you, Keith Norman.)