The great winter ballet.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this postYesterday I found myself waiting in a Grand Forks hospital parking lot for over three hours, and I got to watch the opening sequence of The Great Winter Ballet.
A reality of heavy, thick snowfall is that, as long as you are at home, comfy in a chair, looking out the window and perhaps holding cocoa, it "blankets" the ground. For all others out in it, fighting it, dealing with a motorized vehicle that is not a snowmobile, it smothers. There is no lovely blanketing.
In between running the vehicle to keep warm and trying to keep the windshield wipers from freezing in place, I watched people return to their car and begin doing all kinds of contortions, both in body and face, to get their vehicles running and out of the parking lot.
Flailing, leaping, twisting, leaning, kicking, hopping, smacking mittened hands together...
There was the Pointy Knit Hat Girl and the Woefully Ill Prepared Man Without A Scraper and the Vain Woman With Inappropriate Winter Shoes -- they all performed magnificently. My part in this great ballet was that of the Too Short Woman With Frozen Windshield Wipers That She Can't Quite Reach Because The Suburban Is Too Tall.
I wrote a poem or two, memorializing these people, but most were badly rhymed and in no way acceptable for my current repertoire. It's hard to be successful with iambic pentameter when your mittens, socks, and pants are soaked.
The drive home from Grand Forks was not fun. I had to put up with Act II of this great winter ballet, which involved the Huge Roaring Semi Driving Much Too Fast For Conditions Trying To Pass Everyone And Creating A White-out From The Pillow Drifts. There was ice. Filled-in parts of the road that no car was going to get through. But, home it was.
Where, after mom and dad got out of the car, I found myself facing the unwieldy metal doors where the Suburban is parked, plus a yard full of knee-high (and higher) drifts. Pushing and pulling the doors, using both feet, hands, and a few minor expletives, everything was soon tucked away and the snow could resume blanketing.
Until this morning, when the final act commenced.
When I got stuck.
It was about -15 degrees.
Reverse, drive, reverse, drive, reverse, drive, shovel, dad, reverse, drive.
For all those people who believe four-wheel drive SUV-type vehicles are vanity and only a gas-wasting monstrosity, they are not. With the yard not cleared and the roads to the highway in not much better shape, without my Jeep, I'd still be at home, safe and warm in bed, and not at work on break, writing this.
Stupid Jeep.
Labels: local, my life, nature, work
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 12/05/2007 12:03:00 PM
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4 Comments:
I think I saw those same people today on my trek to school. We finally have our "winter" here in northern Illinois. I had my cell phone on, repeating the mantra, "oh, please, oh please, oh, please ..." Alas, the call cancelling school never came. But I like the idea of a hot cup of cocoa ... and a fire in the fireplace.
By 
Rey, at
5/12/07 13:08
Here in North Idaho, it usually doesn't get that cold.
But it is little wonder, from reading what you wrote, why people are flocking to Southern California. There's a kernel of truth to that song "California Dreaming".
And it explains why, last I heard, ND has a negative population growth.
Yes, there are days here in North Idaho, when I start dreaming of where I grew up, wondering why I left. But what to deal with? hyper-sprawl, smog, insane traffic, astronomical housing prices, or sub-zero temperatures, vast distances, snow drifts, etc.?
Every place has its pluses and minuses.
By Oengus Moonbones, at
5/12/07 14:48
I like this very much, the winter ballet of people working on their cars. Well done.
Have you ever used one of those big shovels that can be attached to the front of jeeps and trucks?
By 
, at
5/12/07 17:25
Well actually...people are flocking from California.
Some even to states like...North Dakota.
And North Dakota's outmigration has slowed and the state itself is actually experiencing a bit of an economic boom while the rest of the country can't really say that.
So....
By Julie R. Neidlinger, at
5/12/07 18:42
