The Blizzard of 09

Well, it looks like we'll survive.

The weatherdude forecast about 20 inches of snow, and that's about what we got... We've been snowed in since Wednesday (today's Sunday). Hopefully the snowplow will come soon -- we still can't get out.

Yesterday Dagmar and I were happily lazing around the house, enjoying the enforced idleness a snowstorm brings, when we heard an odd noise outside. Dagmar trotted to the nearest window. "It's de neighbor kid," she said in that neat Austrian accent of hers. "He's got dat snowyblowy machine. I think he's going to help us with our sidevalk!"

"That's cool," I said, "but if he's doing the sidewalk, who's this in our driveway?" It turns out the neighbor kid was going up and down the block getting the sidewalks, and the across-the-street-kiddycorner neighbor was playing with his new snowblower and decided to get our driveway for us. Way cool!

Dagmar and I grabbed our boots and shovels and went outside to (oddly enough) help the neighbors help us. Within an an hour and a half, maybe two hours, we'd managed to get the sidewalk cleared, the driveway tunneled out, and even backed the car a little ways down the driveway so we could shovel the hood of the car off. We'd also helped push the neighbor lady back into the alley where she parks her car (she was trying to go somewhere, but didn't make it more than five feet into the street before she got stuck).

We missed Christmas at the family farm today, sadly, as the snowplows haven't been through yet. I think by law they have to touch every street in town at least once by midnight tonight (at least that's what someone told me). I know they've been through the "rich" part of town three times already... I have to admit, I was a little upset when we walked Zoey-pup up the street yesterday and saw that they'd cleared a dead-end street with no businesses or houses on it, but not any of the other streets in our neighborhood. Go figger.

This is also about the time after a snowstorm that the news stations all announce that all citizens must have their sidewalks shoveled no later than 24 hours after the snow stopped falling. Unless, of course, you're a business or a government entity, for some reason (none of the stores or restaurants around here ever shovel their walks, nor does the city shovel the sidewalks on public property). It never fails to grump me out.

But in any case, Dagmar and I are both a little sad that our snow-vacation is coming to an end. Tomorrow she goes back to work, as do I. We've really enjoyed being snowed in, oddly enough... I do feel bad for the homeless people in the neighborhood, and the people who lived in the apartment building down the street that caught fire a few days ago. During the height of the storm I heard sirens nearly nonstop as emergency personnel responded to various crises (heart attacks, car accidents, rescuing people in SUV's who think they can go through five-foot snowdrifts), but my little family was safe and snug...