Weather or Not

Articles

Holly Winter
Living The Life Of Holly

Weather or Not
Apr 2, 2003

Ok. So. I was ready to know what the weather was going to be. So I did what any smart woman would do. I called my father. He lives a thousand miles away in upstate New York. He loves to watch the weather channel.

“Hi Dad. When is it going to stop snowing?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.” He said, matter of factly. “Is it still snowing there now?”

“I don’t know.” I said.

“Well. Could you look out the window?” He asked, annoyed.

I looked. “Yes. Still big flakes. Been snowing for…”

“Twenty four hours.” He cut in. “Not going to stop for another twenty four.”

And he wondered why I didn’t want to look out the window. Why look? He already knew.

Today I missed the shock of the two feet of snow that had already fallen. Too bad. Really. It would have been such a marvelous surprise. But. Darlin-man had insisted that we watch the weather report yesterday.

“No.” I had said, squeezing my eyes shut.”

“But. There is a big storm coming.” He said, turning on the TV. “Don’t you want to know about it?”

“No. I like to be surprised.” I said, hearing the weather news. Darn it. I would much rather know the lotto numbers than the weather forecast. I mean. Unless I am planning an outdoor party, I don’t really care about their predictions. Because. The way I see it, their guess is as good as mine.

I once dated a guy who was a meteorologist. He considered it part of his career to pack a picnic basket with a bottle of wine, and drive us around the plains chasing wind tunnels. Nope. We never found a tornado, but we had some awesome lunches. See. That’s the way I like to approach the science of weather: Lunch and a bottle of wine.

Well. I did think that it was sweet that Darlin- man had told me about the storm, but I hadn’t taken it seriously. Who would have thought that we would end up with four feet of snow that would stop Denver cold, with the State Capitol closing for the first time in the history of Colorado? I was truly foodless, with little more than mayo and salsa to play with. So I bundled up to face the storm and find food.

I found some friends at the restaurant around the corner from my apartment. I decided that their table would be the perfect place to let my Sorrel boots rest.

“Holly, you look like the perfect picture of winter.” Roger and Bonnie agreed.

“Hey, thanks!” I answered, letting my little avalanche of snow fall at their feet.

Bonnie was in the midst of an argument. “I just don’t get it. All these homeless people around, and everyone is wasting carrots on snowmen noses. It just isn’t right.”

Roger had an idea. “Maybe the snowmen noses are an excuse for feeding the homeless. So that they can find carrots, scattered all over the city!”

“And all of those scarves are being wasted too.” She insisted.

“Why don’t you go and collect them and bring them to a shelter?” Roger asked.

“The scarves?” Bonnie asked.

“No. The homeless.” I interrupted.

“No. The snowmen!” Roger said. “They could melt them down into carrot soup. I bet that it would be delicious! We could name it Snowman Soup. I bet it would go over real big here in Denver? Yes? No? And we could donate the scarves to a good cause while we are there.”

“Snowman soup seems morbid.” Bonnie said.

“They are going to melt anyway.” Roger assured her. “Consider it recycling. You do believe in recycling, don’t you?”

I left them to find that the grocery store was out of food. I managed to find some canned goods that rolled to the back of a shelf. The snow continued to fall and fall and fall and fall. For fun I stood on the street and watched as no cars or busses or trucks went by. The silence was incredible. I walked on Broadway, one of the busier streets in Denver. It was quiet, even during rush hour. This was a peaceful side of Denver that I had never experienced before.

My friend Stella told me that as soon as the impending storm was a sure thing, her two teenaged boys made 911 panic phone calls.

“Hurry. I need to get out of here. You can’t leave me here. It could be weeks. I won’t make it.” The boy’s friends drove up to the base of their hill and rescued the poor dears. They were driven to greener pastures where they were bathed in houses of cable TV and Pop Tarts. They did finally find their way back home days later when the snow stopped falling so that they could shovel the four feet of the blasted white stuff that wasn’t worth a thing to them if it wasn’t on a ski slope.

See. I know that snow in Denver doesn’t surprise you. It is a pact that we Denver-ites have. We publicize snow storms regularly. We never talk about the sixty degree days that pop up in January. I know. You didn’t know about them, did you? And I bet that you didn’t know that when it does snow, it tends to melt in a day or two, so we rarely have to shovel our driveways. It is a bit of a secret shared locally to keep you outsiders from moving here.

Oh. Sure. We did have to shovel that four feet of snow that fell on us for our big 03, 03 blizzard. But. The shoveling isn’t what bonded the city. It was all the snowball fights that erupted after the shoveling was over. No. We didn’t hurt each other. We are a peaceful people. We ganged up on the snowmen. You know. After a while, they get kind of annoying. They last forever as they melt into little heaps of deformed snow mutations.

So. The young and the old alike all surrounded the snow creatures and bombarded them with snowballs as a way to prove that man is stronger than snow, though it might take a week of shoveling and five days of melting, sooner or later we will have the strength and the sense of humor to throw little balls of frozen water at bigger balls of frozen water. And in the end when there was only piles of slush left, we all went back into our homes filled with the satisfaction that one feels when one has done something big and important. We fell onto our couches and took long naps to try to rid ourselves of the raging exhaustion that it had cost us to stamp out the last of the snow.

And. Now. Ready or not, we are officially ready to welcome Spring.

About the author: Holly Winter is a teacher and a writer and a flight attendant living in Denver, Colorado, USA. She can be reached at her website or email: Holly@livingthelifeofholly.com

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