My First Snow Storm

Getting in the holiday spirit, a few days before the snow.


When I was working on cruise ships in Alaska, we would ask the (complaining) kids as we walked around the outer decks, "Are you cold, or are you tough?" Photo, above, indicates that I was cold.
The snow started around 1pm on Friday. We'd been released from work at noon and I got everyone who had been at work to go out for pizza together. They're all amused by my snow-glee, and they're taking bets on when I'll start to dread the cold and snow. Ha! I say.
Snow tip: Keep your hood up so the snow doesn't melt on your neck.
Mike the Bike is safely inside, but look at these poor bikes, left out in the snow.

A fun activity I discovered is pushing the snow off of cars. Ordinarily, you never touch someone else's car. You probably don't even touch your own car very often. But when the cars are piled high with snow, it's really cool to push it off. You know how destruction is fun, but we normally suppress the desire? Think about it - food fights, demolition derby, lighting stuff on fire. We realize that destroying things is counterproductive, so we normally don't do it. But pushing snow off of cars, that pristine white, the perfect smoothness. It's fun to mess that up. Before:

And after:

Just like apartment management companies kept on top of the fallen leaves in the autumn, so do they shovel or blow the snow. You can see that sidewalks in front of some apartment buildings are clearer than others. Also, in front of playgrounds or parking lots, the sidewalks aren't cleared at all. The roads are cleared nicely, but walking in the road is dangerous because the cars could accidentally slide into you. See the guy blowing snow?

I know I have all winter, but I wanted to get the stereotypes out of the way, so here I am catching snowflakes on my tongue.

My friend Greg and I had a snow fight. I wouldn't call it a snowBALL fight, since I was just grabbing snow and throwing it at him. The snow stuck to my gloves, making snowballs difficult to create. Some college kids were hanging around outside their apartment building and they started cheering for me, "Go Red!" Greg still won, but the kids told me I'd put up a good fight.

It's also fun to make a body print on the cars.

Greg put his face in the cold snow. Can you see the snow sparkling?

This is the view out my windows.

Billy's first big snow.

Right now in Blustery Boston, it's snowing and 33 degrees (but it feels like it's 19 degrees). Today's forecast for San Diego? Sunny, with a high of 64 degrees.

Happy Solstice, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Birthday to me!