Diary of a Low Budget Superhero

Well folks, it's official -- the winter of 2010/2011 is freakin' clobbering us. It's making us its bitch. It's pummeling our wimpy arses into whimpering submission. It's bending us over a bike rack, and landing a punishing donkeypunch to the kidneys. And I say "it's official" because, with today's snow fall, Boston made its debut on the Golden Snow Globe's top ten list of snowiest cities in the lower 48.

It's a dubious honor, to say the least. Am I right, Boston people? Right. Unless you have the memory of a goldfish or your subconscious has heroically blocked out the past four weeks in order to save your sweet sanity, then you should not be surprised that we made the list of top-ten-snowiest cities. We're tenth out of ten, but still. Think about it; that list is topped by soul-crushing places that look like the ice planet Hoth for three months out of the year, where every house keeps a skyscraper of firewood outside, snowshoeing is not so much a recreational sport as a means to get to the mailbox, mail is delivered by snowmobile, and school buses are fitted with plows.

So how did we win this honorable place amongst the great American snowbound? Cumulatively, of course. Boston had a nice, ladylike snowfall that gifted us with a pleasantly white Christmas. Then Mother Nature took off the gloves and became a total bitch, hurling a great big Nor'easter that hit hard overnight on December 26th. What a ballbuster of a storm! Brisk accumulation, thunder, lightning and the kind of strong wind that knocks out utilities, sweeps drifts back onto roads the plows just cleared and blasts away all recollection of why you still live here. Then, approximately ten minutes after that mess was mostly managed ('kay, it might have been days, not minutes), we got another wallop a lot like it, only wetter. No sooner had we dug out of that second storm, there came the next storm that, on the plus side, brought no snow but, quite on the minus side, dumped a torrent of sleety rain that turned the sidewalks into sideslips-and-falls, and transformed the metric shit-ton of plow drifts and snow banks into crystallized mounds of craggy Sno-cones. Our cries of "Mercy!" were muffled under another six inches of fresh snow today.

This most recent snow was fluffier and friendlier, and had the added benefit of refreshing last week's now-graying slushfest with a new layer of powder, kinda like nature's white-out, but being the fourth snow event in as many weeks, combined with temps plummeting to single digits...ahem. Yes, I'm not the only one who crawled whimpering to the sofa with a blanket, a stack of DVDs and a mug of something hot.

It's a challenge, living in a city that's getting socked in by a storm every week.

Oh, I know, it could be a lot worse. It could be Syracuse, Bismarck, Denver or, well, Hoth. But it's all relative, right? Freezing temps and three inches of snowfall in Atlanta shuts down that city quite effectively, while Boston would hardly blink under those conditions. By the same token I'm sure Syracuse citizens laugh at us with our measly 40 inches (season to date) as they work their lives around 98 backbreaking inches. Yes, winter weather is all relative, just as in summer, when it's Atlanta's turn to laugh at our heat and humidity, which by their standards is nothin'. (I predict my next "humidity" entry will come around August, so I've got that going for me. Seriously, WHY do I live here?)

One thing I do love about a wintry city is the camaraderie it fosters. In the beginning, before it gets to be a tiresome chorefest, the snow and cold sort of bring people together. Chances are it's before Christmas, and there is something so magical about the colorful lights against the falling snow. Decorations are still up around the city, people are being comparatively nice to each other, vacations are still ahead of you and everyone's bustling about getting things done. During the first snow or two, there's a certain sense of sharing a common experience wherever the city people gather -- in the Dunkin Donuts line, on the T platforms and bus stops. You're clutching your piping hot large Pumpkin Spice coffee whose warmth you can feel through your cute new mittens, all bundled up, wearing your kicky new Wellies with the happy little cherries on them. There's always some neighbor who is all excited to use his snow blower for the first time so he's out bright and early clearing his driveway, and, feeling manly and cheerful, he might even do the sidewalk for two houses on either side and the old lady across the street. Kids are giddy with the high of the first snow day, squealing with delight as they make snow angels and pull each other around on sleds made out of bungee cords and trash can lids. People are out clearing their cars, waving hello to the plow drivers and calling merrily back and forth to each other. In the beginning, it's pretty, especially when snow falls on those days around Christmas when we're snug inside with loved ones, cookies, cocoa and nothing to do but look out the window at the aftereffects of nature's bedazzler. Trees morph into glittering works of art, the air is dry and crisp, everything takes on a Narnia-esque look.

Winter is not so bad! It's pretty!

Until it gets ugly. Then comes the gray slush, the brown puddles, the yellow snow...even in the two "day after" photos that I took to capture the pretty sunlight on the icy streets and trees, you can already see the mucky beginnings of the not-so-picturesque slush piles. The bottom photo is our house, the blue one.

As fellow diarist Lisa would say, sure it's pretty, "for about five minutes." The sense of camaraderie lasts for maybe six, seven minutes. By mid-January that neighbor is damn sick of pushing his snow blower around, and damned if he's going to do more than the minimum of clearing. Your fingers are numb because you've lost your cute new mittens somewhere near the subway, maybe it happened when you fell on your ass because those Wellies turn out to have no tread for the icy sidewalks. The kids are refusing to go out anymore, even to use the new sleds they got for Christmas that seemed like such a good idea to replace those bungee/trash lid contraptions they were using, but no, so they're inside playing video games, driving their parents halfway to the edge, which those parents will cross over when they hear of yet another snow day. And some people have simply given up on trying to get the car out. They'll take cabs until spring, thank you.

OH, the cars. The cars! Everything about cars is really hard in a city during winter. I haven't had a car since 2003, but it took several years before I lost that instinct to wake up in a panic about the car.

But more about that in the next entry. Plus pictures!