Climate Change

As we prepare as a city to lay Rocco to rest, I'm not at all sure I'm done with that heavy hearted topic, but how could I ignore what we all woke up to this morning!  I looked out my window and realized I couldn't really see my driveway or sidewalks under a heavy coating of snow, but I was leery that it was true snow.  I figured there was a layer of ice under there somewhere.  So, I pulled on my winter woolies, hooked the dogs up to their leashes and headed out as we always do into the pre-dawn morning.  Holy crap!  Layer of ice, my eye!  That wasn't snow.  It was something way more evil (not that snow is evil - I like snow).  It was this white ice-snow stuff that I have never seen the like of.  Never.  Seriously, I've spent some time thinking about it.  I had an hour and a half while I was trying to chisel out my two sweet neighbor ladies' walkways from under a foot of this stuff to think it over.  Growing up in Montana, we had these chinooks that would blow down from Canada and start to thaw out the layers of snow, then freeze back over and leave us with these horrible, deep ruts of ice.  That was bad.  But this came straight out of the sky like that.

Anyway, I tried to walk the dogs - they absolutely live for their walks - but my older girl was slipping all over the place and clearly not happy with this unusual development, while the young one was having the time of her life, leaping forward so she could crack through the ice, which seemed to be the very definition of fun for her, but only served to drag Cheyenne off her already shaky feet.  For my part, I could barely pay attention to them, trying just to keep my own footing on a total sheet of ice.  The three of us gingerly made our way about 3/4's the length of the street before I just called it and tried to turn around.  I couldn't make it across the road.  Seriously couldn't.  So we gingerly just walked back the same way we came, and Cheyenne promptly showed me what she thought of the whole thing by taking care of her morning business on the downstairs bathroom floor (at least she made it to the bathroom) while I went off to try and help dig out my neighbors.

This was just one more crazy winter morning in what has been the oddest winter I can remember.  The thermometer has been like a yo-yo. Up and down, and then back up again and then repeat.  We've had snow, then thaws and rain, then snow again and this infernal ice crap.  Every swing has caused both my daughter and I to have a sinus headache at least one day after the arc takes place (and, pray tell me somebody, what is living to trouble my sinuses in -9 degrees!)  Is it because of climate change?  Of course I have to believe it is.  Even my dad, who died in 1992, believed in global warming all the way back when.  But, you know, I'm like everybody else when faced with freezing pipes, iced in driveways and cabin-fevered dogs; I'm not thinking so much about that on days like these.  I'm just trying to get through them in one piece.  And that can be a bit of a challenge in the Steel City.

One of the things you learn right away is that not all townships are created equal.  I live in a township that is obviously better funded than others, so I saw the plows come up and down my street three times while I was laboring to chip away at heavy ice so my two neighbors had a fighting chance of making it to their mailboxes at some point today.  But that's not uniform.  If I have to travel to a neighboring township, which may only be a mile or so away from me depending upon which way I'm going, that could potentially be a whole different story.  And that's not even discussing the city proper, which is not a shining example of street maintenance under any circumstance.

Now, consider that I live in the North HILLS.  Hills being the operative word here.  If I'm downtown, which I was one Saturday night during the deep arctic blast we had in January, no matter how I try to come back home, at some point I'm going to have to work my way up hill.  I drive a Subaru, so I can handle most situations.  It's the other cars on the road that I have to worry over.  But even my darling, wonderful, amazing Subaru slid around a little on the way home that night because, again, not all townships are created equal.  She stayed tucked safely away in her garage today, and I forbade my daughter from trying to come home from her boyfriend's in Greenfield.  I'm learning the best course of action is just not to interact with a bad winter day from behind a wheel here.

And that's the other thing I've had to accept.  If Montanans cried "snow day" every time the weather is bad, they'd be shut down half the time, so they just don't.  Whatever Mother Nature throws at you, you go about your day like it's any other.  Pittsburghers delay school openings, shut down services and generally fold in on themselves on a regular basis.  Honestly, I used to scoff at that.  Now I get it.   Winter is a real thing here, but they are not set up to deal with it in the serious, take-no-prisoners manner in which Montanans do.  Way better to be safe than sorry.

Bottom line is this:  spring, I will be ever so happy to see you!

Admittedly from last year, but she's so cute...I had to use it.