Post a Comment On: Stephanie Cake

The snow won't stop. Its relentless. Singleminded. If I could stick to a diet and exercise program with the same nefarious plan as this snowstorm, I would be a size 4. I have such a bittersweet relationship with snow and winter. And it seems like its mostly bitter.

Winter starts out all merry. Falls hustles into the holidays with crisp frosty nights. Warms sweaters come out. There are opportunities to snuggle and blaze up the fireplace. There's cocoa and comfort food. And then... And then there's January and February. Holiday letdown. The 10 lbs I inveriably gain from all the holiday comfort food. And the weather. The bleak, nasty weather. Not to mention Valentine's Day. But that's a whole 'nother thing to rant and moan about.

I can vaguely remember legendary snowstorms when I was about 5... and again when I was about 8. Although the details are hazy. I can see my five year old self cranky and near frostbite with my flimsy red rubber boot stuck in an icy snowdrift. Igloos and tunnels dug through the drifts sound so FUN. Until you actually wear yourself out building and digging. Sledding with my neighbors in their backyard was so much fun (straight for the trees! brilliant!). Or, when you find the neighbor boy's Stretch Armstrong buried in the backyard and his weird goo limbs can now be snapped like twigs. Grody!

Oh! And my mom allowing me to cook a hotdog in the fireplace (not sure if it was for the novelty or was our electricity out?). That was really cool! Hotdogs are generally nasty but dangling one at the end of a coathanger until it is black and charred and eating it with a piece of Wonder Bread wrapped around it? Magical! Just like Little House on the Prairie!

I do clearly remember a bad snowstorm when I was about 12. It was great. We were out of school forever. And I lay on my bed for hours talking on the phone with my friends, reading Tiger Beat and Spin and daydreaming about boys. There might have been some extended cocoa drinking sessions. And if I remember correctly my mother - in her own fit of boredom - helped me cook some ridiculous delicacy like fried cheese. Or maybe it was taffy. Glorious. This is when I realized winter weather could be great if you didn't actually go outside. And school closures resulted in the horrors of Valentine's Day being missed. Its far easier to romanticize the love notes you might have gotten if the weather hadn't been so cruel... fiddle-dee-dee... than to face up to the fact you were only destined for candygrams from your girlfriends.

When I was in college, a random snowstorm cancelled classes and resulted in late night snowball fights and perhaps more than one trip to the bar across the street for some underaged drinking. It was great living downtown where as long as you had some waterproof shoes, you could get to anything and everything you really needed. And frankly? If enough beer and cute boys were involved, waterproof anything was just gravy.

It was an ice/snow combo that trapped me and Mr. Cake in my "Near West End" (read: not close enough to be Carytown but too ghetto to be the west end... and maybe or maybe not actually in Henrico Co.) townhouse the winter we were crushing on each other and led to our eventual relationship. He stopped by and couldn't leave for 3 days (but in retrospect I guess he just didn't want to, hah!). It was great. Until we made the ill advised decision to walk to the 7-11 (I was not one for keeping food on hand) and get nachos.

You'd think common sense might have kicked in and suggested that I refrain from spooning up cheese sauce and chili that had no doubt been sitting for 3 days. But you'd be terribly wrong. The ensuing bout of food poisoning was a miserable end to being snowed in with a cute guy. But it was the beginning of love - I figured I either had the choice to eventually marry this man or have him killed since he'd seen me puking in technicolor and writhing in the throes of sweaty stomach cramps on my bathroom floor. Most likely it was the post-traumatic stress that caused him to just give in and propose a year later.

Our honeymoon took place during the blizzard of '96. An obvious precursor to global warming, the east coast was blanketed with 12 or 13 feet of snow while we were in New Orleans. Louisiana just got freezing rain and record low temps. So much for my warm bayou vacation. We made the most of it and got lucky getting home when RVA allowed 3 planes - one of which was ours - to land after 6 days of blizzard closure. It was all poops and giggles until we got to our apartment. And the nightmare began.

I couldn't find my car (it was white and also buried under a glacier of snow thanks to the plows that had been assaulting it daily in our absence). When I did find it - I don't remember how we dug it out but I'm sure there lots of tears and frenzied clawing - the fear set in... parking was at a premium in our cruddy little section of the Fan on a sunny day. It was IMPOSSIBLE when there were mountains of precip taking up valuable space.

Trips to work (I HAD to go... I had just burned all my vacation time getting married and had dumb priorities like paying the electric bill to worry about) turned into 8 hours of fretting and anxiety terminating in a hour of circling the icy streets looking for a spot to squeeze my car into. People were guarding shoveled parking spots with lawn chairs, construction cones... and yes, because we lived in VA... firearms. Clearly the psychological damage of snow finally took hold in my early adult years.

I guess because I tend to be a glass-half-empty sort of person, when I think of snow it conjures up bad memories. But I can dig up some good ones too. No matter how much I hate winter, there is nothing more majestic than standing with a co-worker in a cold, silent parking lot as fat flakes flutter down around me (4 days ago, walking out of work) or peeking out the window to witness a sea of blinding white in the early dawn hours before snuggling back into bed (this morning). Or waking up one Saturday morning in late November to a suprise 12 inches (a couple of years ago - we ran outside in our pj's and coats and took a great Xmas card picture). I have to admit snow can be awe-inspiring at times.

And now we have our own driveway. Which has to be shoveled. But we also have our own fireplace. Hotdogs anyone?