My daughter, Josephine, just turned 3 years old at the beginning of March. That was a very happy time. The weather was warm and the days were getting longer. We had beaten winter. Heat Miser had won (I've never seen the movie that Heat Miser is in, nor do I know the plot. I'm assuming he probably preferred summer to winter? I don't know but I'm sticking with it). In fact, we actually had a pool party for Josie's birthday. An indoor pool party, of course, but a pool party nonetheless.
This piece isn't actually going to have anything to do with the party, but the fact that Josie turned 3 is relevant. Cut to yesterday: we just got 6ish inches (I'm horrible at estimating) of snow. And not just any snow, but the really heavy kind that someone with an electric snow blower hates because an electric snow blower can't blow that snow very effectively. I, unfortunately, have an electric snow blower. So out I went with my shovel, just to get the end of the driveway where the snow plows create a snow wall. Have you ever seen Game of Thrones? That's the kind of wall I'm talking about, and it's at the end of my driveway. When I've got that cleared, my back is starting to ache a bit, but I noticed both neighbors had cleared the sidewalk in front of their houses, which means I have to clear the sidewalk in front of my house. And if I'm going to clear the sidewalk, I'm going to clear the walkway up to my house. And if I clear the walkway up to my house, I'm going to shovel a path through my yard for the mailperson to walk through. It's a real "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" situation but with far less cookies and probably a lot less joy, too.
That, also, was mostly background information. Cut to this morning: I open my garage door and notice that all my hard work had been outdone by mother nature (and probably Snow Miser, too, now that I think about it). No worries - this is pretty light snow. The kind of snow that makes someone with an electric snow blower feel smug because an electric snow blower can blow that snow with the best of the gas snow blowers. So I'm feeling pretty smug on my drive to work, but also a little terrified because the roads are terrible. My bosses are actually surprised I showed up and send me home early. I finish up a few things for work and decide it's time to go move some snow around, which won't be an issue because it's light. I start at the end of the driveway with a shovel again because that snow wall is back. It's very heavy and my back has not recovered from yesterday, so I'm struggling after a very short time. Once completed, I put the shovel away, grab the snow blower, and plug it in. I start it up, take a step out of the garage, and the snow blower turns off. That doesn't bode well for me. We've hardly moved any snow. Maybe the outlet is bad, so I switch outlets. No dice. It is then that I notice the cord is frayed and just barely holding together. "Do I have electrical tape?" I ask myself. "Certainly not...but maybe?" So I go and look. Again, no dice. And no electrical tape, either. But I do have painters tape! And what is snow blowing if not painting the yard with snow? I tape up the cord, nice and tight, plug the snow blower back in and...nothing. I've lost. I stare out at my snow covered driveway and say aloud, "I hate it here." After a good stretch of the back, I trudge out with my shovel and ask myself, "Why do I live here?"
"Oh, yeah, because I have two kids and a legally binding agreement splitting custody of them, and moving far away would make my time with them decrease dramatically, and I don't want that." Circling back to Josie turning 3: "In 15 years, I'm outta here." I think, as I slowly push snow from one side of my driveway to the other. Now, you may be thinking, "But Joe, wouldn't that be hard for your kids if you moved from the only town they've known as home as soon as the youngest graduated high school?" Listen here: my parents did the exact. Same. Thing. And I turned out okay! Well, "okay" might be a stretch, but it's not because my parents moved. You may also be thinking, "This seems like something you do when you retire...why don't you just wait until then?" That's a great point! The only problem is that I probably will never be able to retire so, you know, I can't wait until then.
This is actually very exciting for me because A. I've never had a long term plan before. Like, the farthest ahead I've planned was, "If I eat now, I won't be hungry for dinner. Maybe just a snack then?" and B. I'm not a very good planner. That probably explains part A quite a bit, actually. Now, do I know where I'm going to move? Certainly not. It's pretty tricky because I'd be moving to escape the snow, but I also don't like hot. I also love snow at Christmas. It's a lot to think about, and pretty daunting. Especially when I consider how much I hate moving.
Maybe I should just get a new snow blower.
