snow daze

[ironymaiden]

i grew up in cold snowy winters. i did my first legal driving in snow. i used to have to heat up the kettle to unfreeze my car doors so that i could get to work in the morning. all of this is fine when it's routine. an inch of slush should be pretty, not paralyzing.

Seattle doesn't know what to do with snow. there's no civic infrastructure beyond a set of road closed signs and chains for the buses. people here don't even have snow shovels to clear the sidewalks.

i found myself this morning trying to do ours with a broom and a box of kosher salt. i still feel like it's my duty, even though i don't think there's a shoveling law here. (for those who haven't lived in snowy climes, there are often fines if you do not have "your" stretch of sidewalk cleared within a certain number of hours.)

then i went and waited for the bus. any bus downtown. during the morning commute there's about a bus every ten minutes. in an hour, not one bus came. by this time the cold had penetrated, and i just went home and got on VPN. work email reveals that the meeting i had to attend today is canceled anyway.

i would like my mild winter back. or competent drivers, snowplows, and salt trucks. whichever.

meanwhile, the futon in the living room is flat, with the sumo and all of our loose pillows on top, and i am well-nested with the charlie brown laptop keeping me warm.

Comments

[butterflydrming.livejournal.com]

It's definitely unfun. The sidewalks in my neighborhood wouldn't be a hazard if anyone had swept (at least) on the first day. The side streets are terrifying; every spinning car tire has added to the black slick.

[amheriksha.livejournal.com]

Hell, it would be nice if my neighbors would quit parking on our only sidewalk up the Hill of Icy Death.

That, and the busses were infrequent in Renton too. My bus came on time, but the one before that just decided to not come in.

[julesong.livejournal.com]

I wasn't able to get to our sidewalk before everybody in the neighborhood had tramped on it (we're near the mailboxes, not that there's any mail), packed it down, and it froze. :( But I was able to do a path down our driveway and the part of the driveway that is sidewalk, AND two paths down the part that's not level, to the street.

WE own a snow shovel. :)

This morning I shoveled the new snow off so that any more new stuff wouldn't stick on the warmer cement.

And I just got done chipping through that ice pack on the frozen sidewalk portion. Whew!

I don't know if there's a shoveling law, either, but I'm not willing to risk someone falling down on "our" area and what legal action they might think is a "good idea." You just never know how stupid people will be.

[joyful-storm.livejournal.com]

Dude! Fines for not shoveling the sidewalk in front of your house fast enough?!? O.O

Folks must be much more public-spirited in PA than they are in MA. Sidewalk shoveling wasn't mandatory under any time limit at all there (may have changed since my distant youth).

[buhrger]

up here in the frozen north we certainly have them, not that people always pay attention to them.

[joyful-storm.livejournal.com]

It's a clever idea, really.

I'm just dimly horrified at the idea of doing it in my childhood home. We had an odd, isoceles triangle of a lot whose long side was on the street. Effectively, it could have been the front of two houses. :p

[buhrger]

and certainly the most frequent offender in my experience was someone on a corner lot. yup, it would definitely be significantly more work.

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

And in Ohio people will NOT shovel for fear of legal action. The logic behind said legal action being: The walk was shoveled which implies that it is safe to walk on. I slipped on ice/slush/my shoelace, therefore it obviously wasn't safe and clearly it's *your* fault.

(I don't know that anyone has ever filed such a suit, I just know that it's the logic behind not shoveling. I have more patience with "I'm too lazy.")

[lala67.livejournal.com]

what is this snow/ice you speak of?

I once had to scrape ice off my windshield. It freaked me out. I couldn't imagine doing that on a regular basis. It was a thin layer to boot. I got impatient and came up with the brilliant idea of spraying water on it from the garden hose. Sure it melted...but then quickly refroze. Made for really pretty swirly patterns though.

[mrdorbin.livejournal.com]

What really says 'this is not a snow town' to me is the number of people who don't have a window scraper and brush for their cars. It really surprised me.