KristyWes

Baby, It's Cold Outside (again)

“Snow, snow, snow, snow
It won't be long before we'll all be there with snow
I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow”

So sung the cast of the classic movie “White Christmas” in 1954. I love snow, too, though I don’t know if I’d go so far as to bathe in the stuff. I mean, that would kinda hurt. In any case, I was pleased to look out the window just now and see the sky all fuzzy with flakes. After a premature threat of Spring this past weekend, I’m glad to know that Winter hasn’t left me just yet.

Northern Virginia, land of my youth, sees snow several times a year but usually not more than an inch or so at a time. Accumulation of more than 12 inches is deemed a blizzard, as in “Man, do you remember the Blizzard of ’96?” To which I answer, “Yes, I surely do.” The Blizzard of ’96 was indirectly responsible for me getting chased by an angry mob of neighborhood mothers who were furious over a falsely-advertised potluck party, but that is a story for another time.

Snowfall of any amount in NoVa tends to cause widespread panic. The local news before a predicted storm focuses on images of nervous people cleaning out the grocery stores of bread, milk, and toilet paper. Also, Northern Virginians do not know how to drive in snow. So we don’t. At the first word of snow, we begin to cancel school, work, PTA events, club meetings, and what-have-you in an effort to keep off the roads and out of harm’s way. Invariably, however, the predictions of the weathermen prove false and no snow ever arrives. We are then left sitting at home with our bread, milk, toilet paper, and a vague sense of disappointment.

All this to say that I am glad to be living farther north these days, where I see a bit more snow action. And glad to be living in the city, where there is no need to drive to get where I’m going and the local bodega – just two doors down – will take care of me should a bread/milk/toilet paper emergency arise. Still, part of me wishes I could be experiencing the snow in a more undefiled, quieter environment…say, the mountain monastery of Chartreuse? But that is a story for another time. Tune in tomorrow.