It was just 10 minutes or so of loud sleety stuff. It was over almost as soon as it started, leaving a light splattering of white stuff on the Ninja’s roof. Nothing on the ground whatsoever. No need to drag out my battered old boots (note to self – buy new boots!) or YakTraks. And I didn’t take a photo. Why bother?

That was last night. I am not ready! I know, I live in the Great Lake State. It snows here. Sometimes it even snows earlier than October. I can remember swimming at the moominbeach one Labor Day weekend with little bits of white stuff spitting out of the sky at us. Us beach urchins didn’t care if it was snowing. We swam EVERY day all summer and we were gonna swim in snow. (And yes, I probably have written about that day before. What the heck? It’s my blahg and if you don’t like my boring blather, go find something else to do.)

Anyway, I didn’t grow up to be one of those polar bear swim people but I don’t mind snow and cold as long as I’m not in the water. It wouldn’t be winter without snow and cold. I can shovel with the best of them. But last winter was too long and I am not ready for it to start up again. I mean, just last April, we went up to the Great White North and encountered a big ice storm on the way. Huge drifts of snow surrounded the moomincabin (we didn’t stay there of course, our headquarters that weekend was the Hotel Ojibway) and it snowed off and on all weekend. I had to wear my damn YakTrax fer kee-reist! It was April and we were in Michigan and I don’t expect beautiful warm sunny weather in April in Michigan. April is a mixed bag around here. It can snow and often does! But that weekend was kind of ridiculous.

Eventually winter ended and I breathed a sigh of relief thinking about the months ahead when I could just get into my vee-hickle and take off. No shoveling or scraping. Minimal or no outerwear to muck around with. Dry roads. Er, well, there was that one day that people were kayaking in the streets in downtown Ann Arbor…

This photoooo is not anything recent of course and it is not my house. It is the Dillon house back in 2002(?), or so The Commander labeled that batch of photos. That looks to be a pretty good dumping of snow, possibly on top of another couple of dumpings of snow but let’s put it into perspective. A few years before that, I walked Mouse over to 3rd grade one morning and Mr. K (of multiplication blues fame) asked me if I had heard about the five feet of snow that had recently fallen in Sault Ste. Siberia. No, I had not. Come to think of it, I hadn’t talked to the parents in a while. I tried to call. Busy signal… Multiple times… The phone line into the Dillon house was *always* wonky. When I eventually got hold of The Commander, wow, what a story. Yes, they got five feet of snow. Yes (of course), the phone line wasn’t working. In fact, The Comm had called the phone company to complain. They said (from Detroit or someplace) that someone had already been out. Well, that was not true because after five feet of snow, NOBODY in Sault Ste. Siberia could get anywhere. That little city can deal with a mere foot of snow with no problem. Business as usual. Five feet? Not so much. You might be wondering something like how the heck did The Comm *call* the phone company if the phone line wasn’t working. She WADED through all that snow to the next door neighbor’s house. If you knew my mother, you might imagine that visual…

10-12 inches is about the upper snowfall limit here on The Planet Ann Arbor. That’s enough to clog up our city pretty darn well. I am not ready yet. I don’t even want to think about what five feet would do but at least I can work from home, assuming the power is on… Still. Please do not bring it on Old Man Winter. Not just yet.

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