I'm a sucker for White Thanksgivings - but then, any day with snow after Halloween is fine with me, a dedicated subscriber to the Calvin & Hobbes motto of No green for at least five months out of the year. Cleveland's record for snowy Thanksgivings is poor, which made last year's winter extravaganza ever more dazzling. So you'll understand how yesterday's weather here, cold but not cold enough to freeze the incessant drizzle, wasn't exactly a prizewinner. I suppose I can't complain, though; it was seasonal.
But as I prepared to leave my folks' house about half an hour ago - my sis had flown in from Maryland and the family spent the day together, culminating in a brief-but-wacky game of Monopoly - I heard my name being called from the front of the house. "Mike! Mike! Come look!"
I glanced out the kitchen window into the backyard - that yard didn't look as dark as it should've. Snow!
I raced to the front door, my parents bookends. Blades of grass still poked through the inch and a half or so that had fallen already, but the airborne, white cascades and the wind bearing them showed some vigor. This wasn't a storm - but damn near close enough. I turned to look at my PT on the driveway, blanched as Herbie. Grinning madly, I slapped on my sweater, coat, hat and gloves; walked out to the car and gave the motor a head start while I brushed snow from the windows. I set arrangements for breakfast in the morning before bidding my folks a good night. Then I scuttled out of the neighborhood's snow-slicked roads with a requisite fishtail - just one or two every year - to settle back into the winter-driver's groove.
I'll admit: I took as many backroads as I could, then made a left onto one of our main streets. By then the snow had turned to a staggered rhythm of brisk squalls; Black Friday traffic, of course, pretty high even for nine o'clock at night. Barely out of the driveway, my wipers were still a bit frozen, so the windshield would actually blur on every backstroke. Once that shook out, I had to crank up the defogger to better gauge oncoming traffic for that high-stakes left turn. And then the game of picking out lanes from beneath a half-inch of frozen, white slush while keeping respectable pace traffic.
The view from my apartment is stirring - snow is snow and I love it all, but there's always a touch to that first one of the season. I just looked out the balcony window again and it's still coming down generously. The grass is gone. The weatherman's put out an advisory. Two to four inches by the morning. Really, from the cold to the driving to the sight, I love it all. Don't call me crazy - call me born for the climate.