Blizzard of Aught-Nine: As seen from my patio door

So, you may have heard about this whole winter storm making its way across the U.S. this week.  I wisely chose to wait it out for the past couple of days at home, rather than making the trek to work* in my Mini-Cooper.  And I enjoyed watching the drifts pile up on my back porch.  Let’s check in yesterday, around 2:00 in the afternoon:

Ha, ha.  Look at the grill, just sticking out of the snow.  It sure looks funny.

Shosty is unimpressed.

Damien is confused.  (You should have seen him earlier in the day when it had just started snowing.  I opened the sliding door, he ran up as usual, because he loves outdoors [not that the cats get anywhere other than the porch itself, but still], stopped, got hit by some snowflakes which made their way through the screen, and immediately turned tail and  ran off.)

Now, let’s look at the porch today, around 10:30 in the a.m.:

Heh, there’s that grill again.  Wait, where are the legs?  And the propane tank?

Apparently, they are under the snow.

Damien is wondering what is blocking his view of the outside.

Of course, with great snow comes great responsibility.  Er, or something.  Anyway, after not even getting out of my pajamas yesterday, I was forced to confront the fact that, yes, I would need to clean the driveway and sidewalks.  Thank whichever diety you may wish for the invention of the snowblower.  Without it, I would likely be on the floor, moaning in pain and preparing for a weeklong backache [and that is the best case scenario].

Here I am, getting ready for my snow removal duties:

And here I am right afterward:

Yeah, winter can pretty much kiss my ass.

Finally, when that was done, I settled down for a nice, hot bath:

Oh, what, you thought just because my last post was about nudity, you were going to get pics of me in the bathtub?  No.  Effing.  Way.

*You know, my work used to have these wonderful things called “snow days.”  We even have an inclement weather line to let you know the building status.  However, a couple of years back, there was a snow storm that started early in the morning, and the director was out of town, and the acting director was out of town, and the third acting director was out of town, and on and on, so someone farther down the line than normal had to make a decision.  And they made the decision to keep the building open, because it wasn’t bad yet in their part of town.  Never mind that roads were actually closed due to the snow.  I was going to go to work when I realized the building was open, but when I couldn’t even get my snowblower through the drifts in my driveway, I determined that I wasn’t going to try to maneuver my Mini-Cooper** through the largely unplowed*** residential streets, so instead I stayed home and watched the Star Wars movies [original trilogy only – I wanted it to be an enjoyable day].  Some people made it in, many others, like me, opted to burn some leave instead.  And apparently someone somewhere complained – I’m presuming through the union – and a few months later, everyone who had used leave that day due to the storm got it back.  This apparently chapped some hides in admin, and they elected to adopt a new policy, whereby they pretty much refuse to close the building.  Apparently even when there are blizzard warnings, when every school in town – including the university, which is pretty damn stingy with snow days – and many business and employers closed up, and when there are televised advisories not to drive.  Wankers.

**My Mini-Cooper actually handles surprising well on snow and ice, which was a relief to me since Indie Boy’s mechanic regaled us with tales of a customer who got rid of a Mini in a year because of poor handling and always ending up spinning off the road.  Maybe he just drove like an idiot, because I have no such problems.  However, it is still a tiny car with low clearance, so if there are drifts and/or the road isn’t plowed, I’m not getting through.  Hence my decision to stay home.

***The snowplows in Lincoln are some of the most worthless wastes of taxpayer money I can imagine.  I mean, we live in Nebraska.  There is snow pretty much every damn year, yet they do such a shoddy job, you’d think they never saw the stuff.  Half the time, I’ll see them driving around with their blades up.  Wow, thanks!  When the do put the blades down, they never seem to get all the way to the road, so there remains a packed down layer of ice and snow.  And god forbid they use salt!  I mean, they say they use salt, but I’ve never seen any evidence of it.  I have lived both in small town Kansas and big city Denver (which sees more snow than Lincoln), and have never witnessed such crappy snow removal.  Others who relocated from snowy places, such as Wisconsin or South Dakota, note the same thing.  This snowstorm started yesterday, but they aren’t even going to attempt the residential areas until tomorrow.  Maybe if they did their job, I would be comfortable going to mine.  Just saying.

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