Bah. HUMBUG.

I wish I could love snow.

I love the idea of snow -- fluffy snow flakes you can catch on your tongue, giant snowmen, dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh. All the usual romanticized nonsense. This is because I grew up where there was no snow. When I moved east and discovered the cold, slippery, insidiously icy reality, I was not amused. It does not taste like powdered sugar, it only crunches pleasingly beneath your boots for the first five minutes after it falls (after which you're taking your life in your hands, or else it's covered in dog piss), and making snowballs with sufficient layers of finger protection is much more awkward than it looks in the movies.

What I hate the most is how stupid it makes people around here. The City of Gaithersburg operates under a continual policy of "d'oh!" when it comes to bad weather. No matter how much warning we've had -- surely that doesn't mean us, right? So this morning my street was only minimally plowed with no dirt or salt laid down, and I stood in ankle-deep snow on our unshoveled sidewalk waiting for an overcrowded bus that was 45 minutes late because it kept getting stuck on the minimally-plowed, unsalted hills.

Two bus stops down, of course, it got stuck again. "We're not going anywhere until a tow truck comes," the driver said, opening the door after ten minutes of trying to wiggle the bus up the hill. "So if you want to get off, go ahead. But I'm not stopping to let you back on again."

Amazingly, a flock of people skittered off the bus and went out to stand in the snow again. A little while later, someone spotted the next scheduled bus coming up behind us, and another bunch of people scampered off, even though there was no way the second bus could get around the first bus. So they ended up standing in the snow, too. It worked out for me, since I got to sit down and get through another sixty pages of Post Captain while the two bus drivers flagged down a dirt truck. With the bus now about an hour late, we finally got going again, and our driver was true to his word -- we went right past the poor dodos standing in the snow piles and kept on going, afraid that if we stopped, we'd end up stuck again. The Metro station was a slip-and-slide event, and my transfer bus was running on schedule, which meant I had missed it by three minutes and had to wait half an hour (in the still-falling snow) for the next one. Then, when I finally got off the bus in front of my office building, I splashed down right into an ankle-deep puddle of ice water. Thankfully, it's casual Friday, which means I get only slightly odd looks while walking barefoot around the office, waiting for my shoes and socks to dry out.

So. I try to be cheery and holly-jolly and all gung-ho about the first snow of the season. I'm just not very good at it. My icon will have to be jolly enough for both of us.

Bah. HUMBUG.

I wish I could love snow.

I love the idea of snow -- fluffy snow flakes you can catch on your tongue, giant snowmen, dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh. All the usual romanticized nonsense. This is because I grew up where there was no snow. When I moved east and discovered the cold, slippery, insidiously icy reality, I was not amused. It does not taste like powdered sugar, it only crunches pleasingly beneath your boots for the first five minutes after it falls (after which you're taking your life in your hands, or else it's covered in dog piss), and making snowballs with sufficient layers of finger protection is much more awkward than it looks in the movies.

What I hate the most is how stupid it makes people around here. The City of Gaithersburg operates under a continual policy of "d'oh!" when it comes to bad weather. No matter how much warning we've had -- surely that doesn't mean us, right? So this morning my street was only minimally plowed with no dirt or salt laid down, and I stood in ankle-deep snow on our unshoveled sidewalk waiting for an overcrowded bus that was 45 minutes late because it kept getting stuck on the minimally-plowed, unsalted hills.

Two bus stops down, of course, it got stuck again. "We're not going anywhere until a tow truck comes," the driver said, opening the door after ten minutes of trying to wiggle the bus up the hill. "So if you want to get off, go ahead. But I'm not stopping to let you back on again."

Amazingly, a flock of people skittered off the bus and went out to stand in the snow again. A little while later, someone spotted the next scheduled bus coming up behind us, and another bunch of people scampered off, even though there was no way the second bus could get around the first bus. So they ended up standing in the snow, too. It worked out for me, since I got to sit down and get through another sixty pages of Post Captain while the two bus drivers flagged down a dirt truck. With the bus now about an hour late, we finally got going again, and our driver was true to his word -- we went right past the poor dodos standing in the snow piles and kept on going, afraid that if we stopped, we'd end up stuck again. The Metro station was a slip-and-slide event, and my transfer bus was running on schedule, which meant I had missed it by three minutes and had to wait half an hour (in the still-falling snow) for the next one. Then, when I finally got off the bus in front of my office building, I splashed down right into an ankle-deep puddle of ice water. Thankfully, it's casual Friday, which means I get only slightly odd looks while walking barefoot around the office, waiting for my shoes and socks to dry out.

So. I try to be cheery and holly-jolly and all gung-ho about the first snow of the season. I'm just not very good at it. My icon will have to be jolly enough for both of us.