The Return of Civilization
Releasing Us from our Snowy Confinement
The sound of this machine, clearing snow from the road in front of our house on Friday last (12 February 2010), was what we woke to. At that point it was a sweet, sweet sound, the tune of our deliverance from cabin fever, our return to suburban civilization.
The snow being removed had started falling on Friday afternoon the week before. That first snowfall, from which we netted 24 inches, ended Saturday evening. It was followed up with some more all day Tuesday, amounting to an additional 8 inches. We're now comfortably past our previous record for snowiest winter.
On Thursday — the day prior to snowbound emancipation — we did have contact with the outside world. Friends Debra, Raquel, and Evangelin, ably assisted by Roy, trekked down our street on foot and ascended our perilously icy driveway (without crampons!) to deliver some live-saving emergency cupcakes.
The scent of carrot cupcakes was like the finest perfume of civilization in one's hand. Fortitude was ours to last out the duration of our confinement. Fortunately, it came the next morning.
We'd been within bounds of the bottom of our driveway for 7 days, fully 154 hours. Previously, our worst winter storm (in 1996) had kept us at home for only five days. It's tolerable, we maintained equanimity (mostly because we maintained electrical power), but it wasn't all that edifying an experience. As with our five-day loss of power from hurricane in 2005, the romance of a curtailed suburban lifestyle faded rather quickly.
The first thing we did upon our escape was to have lunch. The next thing was to go by our favorite Safeway and, upon observing that the parking lot was not overflowing with cars, we shopped to replenish supplies that had become markedly depleted. The shelves were not barren, but there were big empty spots revealing that some supply trains had not yet gotten through to the store. But we were happy to find the essentials we needed for our larder.
Today we celebrated Valentine's Day with a visit to our favorite monthly destination, Daedalus Books, in Columbia, Maryland. The drive was remarkably easy for us, but we saw plenty of snow removal still going on. We also had word this morning of friends who were just this morning making their own escape from snowy, suburban quagmires.
It's surprising to me how quickly the memory already seems to be fading.
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on Tuesday, 16 February 2010 at 01.40
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Do you remember having to climb up and down mountainous snowbanks to get from the Dupont Circle metro station to Annie's in the aftermath of "the blizzard of '06'? That was my first experience of DC! It was up one side of a mass of snow, down the other, across a street, repeat the process, slog along a sidewalk to the next street, and it all started over again.
on Tuesday, 16 February 2010 at 17.42
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Jeff, I'm glad you got out from being homebound for a week. I'm especially glad you didn't have to go without electricity, which is a nightmare nowadays.
Amazingly, with great thanks to El Nino, we're on track to set a record low for snowfall this year — a richly deserved break and welcome sign there is some small measure of justice in this world. Here, from the local newspaper's March 30, 2009 edition, is why I say that: