The wind is howling outside, the snow is blowing sideways, the lights are flickering, and there’s no telling how long my electricity-dependent Internet connection will last. I had better post these pictures before my link with the cyber-world gets cut.
Snow: It’s Big News in Seattle. When we moved here from Ohio 30 years ago, people we first met admitted that winters here are too rainy, dark, and depressing, but the locals added, a bit defensively, that at least it doesn’t snow very often. In fact I remember being told that the city only had a couple of snow plows.
I’m embarrassed to say that Leah and I bought into the regional weather fib. “It never snows here,” is what I think we told our family members back in Ohio, where winter can be brutal. We didn’t say “rarely,” or “seldom,” when talking about instances of snowfall, though that would been at least a tiny bit more accurate. We said “never.”
And so -- because Mother Nature is nothing if not a woman with a sense of wry humor -- our family lore is full of stories, instance upon instance, when Ohio relatives have traveled here to visit us, only to experience a record-setting Puget Sound snowstorm. My Mom came out last Christmas and it snowed a ton; this week Leah’s parents were here and the pictures I’m posting today are my chagrined chronicle of what we saw as we looked out our windows.
That first day, the snow fell gently and silently and everything was so very peaceful. Day number two brought nasty wind, ice on the roadways, trees falling on power lines. Friends of ours have been without power for two days now and they've had quite enough of life lived in down coats, down sleeping bags, and "winter camping."
Okay, I guess it does snow here.
