Morning Snow

We had a light dusting of snow yesterday which left the ground barely covered but softly white. I had paid no attention to the weather forecast for the night and when I faced my kitchen sink this morning I noted a nice sheen of ice in the corner of the window. Good sign. I'll have a windshield to scrape this morning.

I headed out the door a few minutes before time to leave for work to rev up the motor on my car and let the defroster do most of the scraping dirty work. I stood on my back steps and stared with my mouth hanging open. This was not about frost on the windshield this was about 3 inches of snow covering the entire car. How'd that happen, anyway? Well that was that. I grabbed a broom and began the process of removing the snow from the car. It was beautiful and I got a tad bit carried away and also cleaned off my daughter's car for good measure. Yeah, that probably won't happen again.

I came back in while the motor ran a few more minutes and tried to figure out why I was surprised by the snow covered vehicles. After all we do live in Michigan and this is December. It's not like that's not what it does up here this time of year.

Yeah, it bloody well snows up here in the winter. I should have moved to a warmer place years ago. But, truth is, I rather like the winters even as I dread them, complain and even step it up a notch to just plain bitchin'.

Our lady winter usually creeps up in with early warnings so we get a chance to prepare ourselves for the harshness she holds in her hands. Days start getting shorter and colder all at the same time. By the time the first snow drops a bit of blanketing on the earth you have begun wearing heavier clothing and had to scrape your windshield every morning for a couple weeks.

There was none of that this year. Thanksgiving eve we got hit by severe storm warnings and those warnings turned out not to be unfounded. Things were shutting down with tons of snow falling everywhere. Luckily I found someone on Thanksgiving morning to shovel us out. I had been running around with only a sweater and now I needed to head for the "other" closet and grab my winter coat. Then there was finding the gloves I hadn't worn since last year. I hate the entire bundling up process, so it was no wonder that as soon as the snow melted I returned to my light warmer weather attire.

The heavy Thanksgiving snow departed in 40 degree temps and things were feeling rather nice to me again, but now we're getting the "better watch out, winter's here" weather. So, yeah, I shouldn't have been surprised about the snow covered cars. Afterall, it is December, this is Michigan, and snow is what happens here. I guess I'll just have to adjust quickly to the cold. Better get that heavy coat into the cleaners and quit acting like it's going to be a mild winter. I don't think it is going to be one.