Saturday, March 08, 2008

WHITE OUT!

Have you ever seen "The Shining?" You know, the movie with Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duval?

The innocent family go into the heights of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and are snowed inside a cursed, satanic hotel.

Then bad things happen . . . like Jack going crazy with devilishness and proceeding to kill, kill, kill?

Well, what's happening in my house today ISN'T like "The Shining" because it isn't taking place in Colorado!

(Only kidding. Please don't send police.)

The truth is, we are well and truly snowed in here in mid-Ohio. We got about four or five inches of snow yesterday and about that same amount today. I'd say we've got a foot or so of accumulated snow in the yards, on the roofs, in the driveways, etc. The snow is so deep, it's even too deep for the kids to go outside and play in it--since they aren't currently six feet tall and don't seem to enjoy wading in snow piles that reach their waist.

This morning, Lynda made a valiant attempt to clear off the driveway, just in the eventuality that we might need to go out (which we don't plan on). Also, we'd better get some of the inches shifted, since it only gets heavier and harder to move around later.

After 30 minutes or so of hard work, she had cleared the top third of the driveway. Exhausted, she handed the shovel over to me and I set to work clearing out the rest. Normally, I just push the snow to the side of the driveway and into the yard, but the amount of snow made it impossible to shove. So we were making small bites and throwing the snow into the yard. After a while, I could shove some of it aside, but it took me at least 30 or 45 minutes to get to the bottom of the driveway. And then there was the sidewalk, and then there was the fact that even with the driveway cleared, the street itself is packed with the same amount of snow. So I chewed away at the snow in the street, feathering it out a bit and reducing the wall of frozen precipitation that would likely have stuck the car at the edge of the street.

(Again, this is all precautionary and prudence. We don't plan on going anywhere.)

Since this mornings labors, I've been trying to do as little as possible. I rested my aching muscles on the couch for a while and I'm trying to concoct a seafood stew (that will probably be cooked tomorrow rather than today). I'm hoping it might conjure up thoughts of tropical beaches, shorts, and flip flops.

1 comment:

David said...

That shushing sound is NOT Lynda trying to make the snow storm more dramatic.

She was holding/soothing Hannah at the time and was filming through the glass front door.

Obviously, she couldn't step out to film the enormous bulwarks of snow piles that I had been so heroically shoving around like some sort of modern-day John Henry/Paul Bunyan.