I looked out the window this morning and saw a sight that I had once hoped was forever banished from my vision.
Snow. The White Death. Not an inoffensive dust skittering gaily ’round the tires, not even the rather noxious but ultimately ignorable mounds of dirty ice and snow piled up in the corner of a parking lot waiting for a good seventy degree day to melt into oblivion, like Frosty’s unwashed and skanky older brother, but a good inch or two worth of actual white fluffy snow.
The horror.
All those years in Minnesota, becoming practically immunized against the snowy devils, and eight months in Arizona broke me completely. Saguaros may have kidnapped me in the night and reprogrammed my hindbrain. I truly believe that February should be in the 70’s, and that snow is an unnatural meterological event that occurs in the far north somewhere, possibly above the arctic circle. I should be able to grill outside, damnit! (This may have something to do with being a small child there for a good many years–it wasn’t so much a reprogramming as a return to the original programming, which is probably why it took so hard.)
More is reputed to be on the way, which means that we might–god help us all–have to actually shovel the driveway.
I can hear my father, who has been known to read this journal occasionally, laughing from clear across the country…to say nothing of all those Minnesota friends, who undoubtedly feel that I am getting my just desserts on this one. And they would be right.
I will adapt. I am a good little hominid and adaptability is what we bred for. If my remote ancestors can go from the jungle to the savannah without indoor heating, I can go from the desert to the forest with it. I won’t even complain much, beyond this entry. James, of course, is perfectly cheerful about the whole thing, since he did not get kidnapped by saguaros and still has the Minnesota disdain for any snowfall less than a foot, as manifested by the repeated call of the Minnesota transplant: “You-call-this-snow? You-call-this-snow?”
The horror.
