Singing the Winter Blues While the Lion Roars

March arrived like a lion, and that lion roared like a sonavabitch.

Yesterday, I was up a little after 6:00 AM, and looking out the window, I saw white. And there was more white coming down.

Yuck!

With all that frozen precipitation, it was not a day for people to want to be up and about.

As such, my open house was a total wash out, with the only person showing up being a curious neighbor who wanted to snoop inside my house.

There was more of that white stuff outside this morning. Even though it was just 3 inches, it was a coarse and granular snow that was slightly moist. Its texture held tight and would not allow me to sink all the way down to the ground through those scant 3 inches.

For sure, I knew that this was not the type of snow where I could easily barrel out of the driveway with my car. Far from it. My car would easily get stuck within 3 feet of trying to move.

With no warm spell in sight, I had no choice but to get the driveway cleared.

I tried calling the plow guy. But his phone just rang and rang without even going into a voice mail.

In the meantime, it was already 9:00 AM, and the paper still had not arrived. And with the paper not being here, there was no sense in my staying in and doing nothing. Looked like I was going to have to go outside, right then and there, just to give myself something to do until the paper arrived.

Because it was not overly cold, as far as New England winter weather went, there was no need for me to get into my parka, and not even my down vest.

All I needed, besides what I normally wear inside, was a pair of snow boots, gloves, a polar fleece roll around my head to keep my ears warm, and another polar fleece roll around my neck to keep it warm.

Heading out, I grabbed a can of silicon spray to spray on the shovel so that snow would not stick to it. I guess I needed to wait a couple of minutes for the spray to penetrate, because when I started shoveling, the snow still stuck to the shovel.

It was slow going. While not densely-packed heavy snow, it still was not easy shoveling.

As I had predicted, the layers that I wore were enough to keep me warm. Sometimes I even felt very warm.

20 - 30 minutes into shoveling the newspaper arrived. 5 - 10 minutes later, as I was already out to the street, the garbage truck came to pick up the trash.

I chatted briefly with the garbage guy. Like everyone else, he has gotten rather weary and disgusted with all this white crap.

(Have I mentioned that "snow" is a 4-letter word?)

With half of the driveway completed, it was now time to work my way up from the street back to my car.

I was not amused with all the shoveling that I had to do, and I took little consolation in the fact that I was getting a work out. Frankly, I can think of many ways far more pleasant to get my exercise.

After the driveway was done, I set out to work on clearing out a space in front of my mailbox for George the letter carrier to be able to deliver my mail. Most people are not aware of the fact that the LLVs (long life vehicles) driven by letter carriers are horrible to drive in this kind of weather.

Once that was done, I shoveled the front steps and the front walkway.

As I predicted once more, the entire job took me 2 hours.

Now I was ready to come inside and enjoy a cup of coffee with my paper. All this time, the 2 old dogs and the little dog were comfortably ensconced inside, having distributed themselves between the couch and the blanket-lined dog crate.

While reading the paper, I felt in the mood for some green split pea soup and heavily buttered potato bread toast. Boy! That hit the spot.

Once I was done with my paper and my meal, I was thinking of heading to the laptop to do a bit of blogging. However, all of a sudden I started feeling very, very tired. In addition, I was feeling colder than ever.

Not even the little electric heater was enough to get me warmed up. I felt cold right down to the core.

At that point, I felt as though I had no choice but to go upstairs, where it was significantly warmer, in order to heat up.

The upstairs is so warm that I generally have to remove a couple of layers of clothing in order to feel comfortable. But I was so chilled to the bone that everything stayed on, including the polar fleece roll that I had around my head.

Even getting under the covers did nothing to help my body warm up. All I could feel was this uncomfortable hollow cold within my inner core. I was definitely in need of the restorative power of sleep.

And this time I did not have to feel guilty about taking a mid-day nap. I worked my butt off shoveling snow, and I earned that precious and blissful nap.

I was hoping to rest for only half an hour. But when I woke up, I noticed that 1 1/2 hours had passed. However, I was restored.

Unfortunately, the lion has not finished with its roaring. The temperature is supposed to drop into the frigid degrees.

While we're experiencing a shivering 25 degrees here right now, it is a sinfully balmy 78 degrees in Lubbock where Neil is. Not only that, the temperature is expected to go up to 84 degrees this Wednesday. Our temperature prediction for the same day is a high of 28 degrees.

That's another reason why I am anxious to get to Texas right away. The lion is well-muzzled there.