Tonight, we hunker!

It is effing snowing again! Okay, I know that back in December I talked about how lovely the falling snow was and how festive and Christmassy I was feeling and how the weather outside was frightful but the fire was so delightful, but I am, emphatically, over it. I still love a good snowstorm but this is getting ridiculous. The weatherman said that this will be the worst storm of the season. They're predicting up to fifty centimetres of snow which is hard to imagine if you don't get much snow, but 50 cms is a buttload of snow, especially when you consider that the city has yet to move the 27 cms we got on Wednesday and the who knows how much we got last Saturday. At the end of the lot where I park my car there is a townhouse with the kitchen window looking out on to the street. The little woman who lives there with her teenagers can often be seen sitting and sipping her morning coffee and watching the world go by. Little snippets of other people's lives, even people we never speak to and don't really know, can become part of our routine. They can comfort us when our own lives occasionally spin out of control. I have not seen this woman since the end of December because the snow is piled up five feet above her window! She could be trapped under something heavy for all I know. I have to admit, it's somewhat unsettling, although curiously, not quite unsettling enough for me to walk the twenty extra steps, knock on her door and say "Hi, I'm Helen. Just popping round to make sure you're alright and not pinned under your fridge." I tell myself that the teenagers would have called 911 by now if something were amiss, and if I'm wrong and she is trapped under her fridge, there's a pretty good chance she won't answer the door when I knock.

I'm ready for the birds to return, the sunshine, the stench of dead earthworms after the rain, the eighty-three cents in loose change I will find in the street after the snow melts. I'm ready for Easter eggs and tulips and a clean car and sandals and a pedicure and pink polish on my toes. But it is quite clear that none of that will be happening any time soon. So I suppose I should just stay in my jams, make more tea, hunker down and enjoy sitting in my favourite chair, reading, while fifty centimetres of shit, crap and corruption furiously batters my living room window.