Grrrrrrrr.

The UPSIDE of living out here on the frickin' TUNDRA where we are randomly pummelled by BLIZZARDS would be? That's right, the getting of SNOW DAYS. So how extremely vexing is it that today -- after the second more-than-a-foot snowfall in less than a week -- on a day when EVERY public and private school, technical school, and community college in the metropolitan area, not to mention libraries, day care centers, and numerous businesses large and small, are all CLOSED -- on such a day, when everyone ELSE is getting a three-day weekend and having the opportunity to get their shovelling done, the god-damned University has decided to remain OPEN. I kick you, University! I kick you HARD!

(And that photo essay I posted earlier in the week chronicling the Excavation Of The Car From The Giant Snowdrift? Yeah, needing to be done allllll over again. By 8 a.m. tomorrow. Crap.)

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So we've had more than half of an entire winter's average total snowfall in six days, and by next Wednesday it will be in the 40s and everything will be an ocean of slush. (We could still, of course, have several more blizzards this year; March is traditionally Blizzard Month.) I got the car successfully de-snowbanked yet again; this time, even though the snow was deeper than on Monday, the whole process was easier, mostly because it's been colder and hence the snow was more dry/fluffy than sodden/backbreaking. I managed to snag the last parking space on the main thoroughfare a block away, which is the only street in the area that's actually been plowed yet, and then then hiked a couple of blocks to the hooch shop to get some wine, which I am now enjoying, along with a gigantic bowl of popcorn. It's still snowing out, but more lightly, very big glittery flakes that I must confess are quite beautiful.

There was a fair amount of foot traffic out on the street, people slipping and sliding around on the mostly-inadequately-cleared sidewalks and trying to clamber over the almost-entirely-uncleared battlements of snow thrown up by plows and snowblowers at the corners, some of which were mid-thigh high. I tell you what, for all the snarly self-pity I've been exhibiting this past week, the people I really feel for in this weather are the African immigrants who make up a sizable part of my neighborhood's population. The women especially, struggling along with parkas jammed over their long flowing dresses and hijabs, hems trailing in the slush. Though they are, women and men alike, remarkably stoic and resilient, you can see an expression on their face sometimes suggesting I wanted to get the heck out of Somalia, sure, but this wasn't exactly what I had in mind.