Big News in a Small Town...

I've realized why I blog about snow so much. Ok, so yes, I love snow and enjoy putting lyrical odes out into the blogosphere. However, I've also realized that I live in a small town in Ohio and, when it snows, that's the main event.

Take for example, yesterday. Our brilliant weather forecasters reported that we would get possibly one to three inches in the next 24 hours. So, when it started blizzarding down around 11 a.m., we were a little surprised. More surprised were we when the snow did not stop. By the time I left work at 5 p.m., we'd had at least 6 inches, it seemed. Needless to say, driving home...not so fun.

The nice thing is that my coworker and I live in the same apartment complex so we followed each other home in case we got stuck. You see, there is this major hill just down the road from our complex. It's a roller coaster-type hill, all the way down then all the way up. Since the snow was coming down so hard, we were afraid that the hill would be shut off as sometimes happens in bad weather. Fortunately, it wasn't closed and they'd done a great job of clearing it so that it was mostly slushy. The rest of the trip home....not so good.

Even parking the car in this heavy snow is nuts because it was blowing and driving through a drift to find the approximate of a parking space can be a challenge. Fortunately, I purchased Digger, my handy dandy snow shovel. He was very useful this morning. I managed to plow a path behind my car. And yes, I actually enjoyed that.

What I didn't enjoy was, once more, my stray was waiting to ask for a ride. Because I find it hard to be mean, I told him I would but I'm really, really hoping he gets his car fixed soon because he's getting in the way of my 'me-time'. I like to drive to work in the mornings and slowly wake up. I don't mean wake up in the sense that I'm driving down the road, fast asleep because that would be both scary and daft.

No, I mean that I'm awake when I drive but I like to let the day slowly approach me as I'm making my way to the office, not come at me in a rush. I listen to a CD and use my ten minute commute as a wake-up meditation of sorts. Well, unless some moron cuts me off and then I wake up quickly enough to think of many a crude insult.

This morning, I had company on my commute. The roads weren't too terrible this morning; I salute the snow plows who must have been at it all night. Yet my stray is a chatter which is something I prefer not to deal with until later in the morning. He lived in a city before and is horrified that, so far, I haven't felt the need to go into Cincinnati, the nearest city to us. The truth is...I haven't. I love the things that a city offers: Ethnicity, Arts, Culture...all that. Yet, living in L.A. for eight years gave me plenty of it and I think it's ok to take a break for a while and let the peace of this small town wash over me. Eventually I'll have the urge for some Vietnamese food or something else that's hard to find in the little towns near me but in the meantime, I'm loving the simplicity of a place in which a heavy snowfall is the big news.

It also helps that I'm still enamoured with snow and, even in spite of the complications it causes, am quite happy to watch it fall from the safety of my apartment.

Happy Wednesday.