The S- Word

What on earth is going on around here? It's February-stinkin' 1st, for crying out loud. I've only been S'ed upon twice since Thanksgiving, and neither instance was anything worthwhile.

You know, that fluffy white stuff. Snow.

There. I said it. Hate me if you will, but I want snow, dadgummit. I neeeeeeed snow. I love snow. Sure, driving in it can be a pain. For me, snow is the thing that makes winter bearable. That lovely white blanket covers up the mud and the dead grass and the dog poo I haven't scooped since Christmas. The whole world looks brighter.

(Why haven't I scooped since Christmas? Because it's been too blinkin' warm and wet. Scooping rainy, wet poo makes a nasty job even more disgusting. If it would freeze out there already, I'd be scooping poopsicles with little effort. We had a brief freeze the other week, and I forgot, so here I am with another weeks' worth of poo getting rained upon.)

This is gross. Let's move on.

A good snowfall will give my children something different and fun to do. They're just about sick of playing pirates on the swing set, coloring the driveway with chalk, chasing each other, and riding bikes. The sand box sand is damp and cold. It's all I can do to get their butts away from Gassy Gus and outside for ten minutes of fresh air. If it ever snows, for Pete's sake, I won't be able to get their butts inside. I can't wait.

Maybe it's a rose-colored memory, but I remember getting real honest-to-God snowfalls around here as a kid. I dimly remember snow up to our dog's chest and well above my knees. My mother would send my sisters and me out into the yard, and we'd play until we were stiff with cold. We were inside just long enough for our gloves and hats to come out of the dryer before going back out.

When I was smaller, we had several inches of snow followed by an ice storm. I remember working with my sisters to scoop the snow from beneath the crust of ice on the hood of my parents' car so they could lift it off and use it as a roof for their snow fort.

A few years later I made a monstrous snowball and a friend's house, and I was so proud of it that I rolled that thing all the way home. It was huge, easily coming up to my hips, and it took every bit of energy and muscle I had to roll it home along the snow-packed streets to our front lawn. The following Monday, to my juvenile horror, the high-school kids shoved it back into the middle of the road in an effort to block the school bus. I thought my snowball was a goner.

And sledding!! Sledding rocks!!! Except for the time rode my sled head first (literally) into the bumper of our neighbor, Mr. W's, truck, our street was great for sledding: smooth, sloped, and little traffic. Even better was sledding at my friend's house. Her parents' house sat atop a steep hill, and their driveway met the road directly across from an intersecting street. So, in short, they sat on a hill at the top of a T intersection. We were absolutely forbidden to use their driveway to accelerate our descent down the road due to the risk of getting squashed by cross traffic, but (Sorry, Mr. & Mrs. N.) I did it anyway when they weren't home. Hey, it was okay. Clearly, I didn't get squashed. I had a great view of the road and could easily check for oncoming traffic in both directions before leaping onto my sled and rocketing across the road. (I recently remembered this after a neighborhood kid skateboarded down his hilly driveway and whooshed across the path of my oncoming my car. I was a good distance back, but it gave my heart a good jolt.)

In high school, they'd plow the parking lots and make monstrous snow piles around the school with the cleared snow. These piles were seriously huge. You had to scale it at least halfway before you could see over the top. The best part was being the first in the after-school snowball fight to do this and bombing Karl F. with a huge snow boulder as he stood on the other side. The worst part was sinking into the pile up to my thighs and nearly losing my shoes as I yanked my feet out. It was then that I first learned that snow does not stick to nylons, and if you don't wallow in it they stay fairly dry.

I want to hurtle my kids down a snowy hill already! There's a perfect spot not far from here for it, and we haven't had enough snow for sledding since Precious Daughter was two. What gives?

I look out my window, and I see rain. Lots and lots and lots of stinkin' rain. If this were snow, we'd be inches deep by now. It'd be an awesome blizzard from the look of it. Mighty B. would be catching snowflakes on his tongue. I'd be busy throwing snowballs for Knucklehead to fetch, and Precious Daughter would enjoy an early dismissal. There would be no bread, eggs, or milk left at the supermarket, because the panicky people (and there are lots of 'em) can't seem to get it into their heads that we haven't been truly snowed under in decades. With our community as it is, we'd need one big-butted blizzard to keep us housebound and off the roadways for more than two days. I'd welcome such an event!

But noooOOOOooo, as Steve Martin would say. It's raining with not a snowflake in sight because the temps are expected to climb into the upper 40s. I can guess when it will finally snow. It will snow in April when I'm sick to death of cold and rain and aching for the smell of spring and the sight of green grass and flowers. I usually start feeling that way in the beginning of March.

Can you imagine what my scooping situation would be like by then?