Winter Bitching
Michael and I start my Bradley classes tonight, thank goodness it is not snowing yet. I like the snow, but enough is enough! It is no longer white and fluffy, but ice. The city is running out of places to put the snow so they are piling it in a ridge in the middle of the streets downtown, this “ice ridge” was up to my waist today. For the past few days it has been warming up to just above freezing, enough to melt the ice ridge enough to coat the streets in water which then turns into a 1/4-inch thick layer of ice at night. This thin ice is unbelievably slick (or I am unbelievably uncoordinated…) and clear like glass. Some of the water is pooling by the cross walks and there is 1/2-inch of seemingly solid ice (thankfully not completely clear.) When you step on this ice though you go right though and are halfway up your calves in icy water. Urban flooding meet freezing nights!
Wonderful!
Today a construction grader when by my work 3 times, slowly whittling away at the ice ridge, followed by two plows with their blades not all the way down. They were spreading the slush over the road, I suppose in the hopes it would melt. Where is that melted water suppose to go anyways? All the drains downtown are blocked by, you guessed it, more ice and snow piles. doesn’t matter either way, it wasn’t warm enough to melt so now we have an inch of compact ice on the downtown streets.
Lovely!
Then the parking lot I work in… The ice ruts are so bad that the smaller cars are getting high centered. Even the 4-wheel drive vehicles were getting stuck today. Of course this is my fault, since I cannot magically make the ice melt. We don’t even have anymore salt (the offices fault, not mine) and our plastic snow shovel isn’t going to beat ice, it just isn’t. Trust me people, if I could get ride of the ice, I would, I am out a lot more skating (I mean walking) in the lot then you. I do not enjoy it. It was so icy this morning that the doors on the pay boxes were totally frozen shut.
Fantastic!
I am more then ready for winter to be over. I know this snow is great for our aquifer, we had so little rain this past Spring/Summer/Autumn. Still if it warms up too fast we are going to have flooding like we I hear we did in 1996, which caused region wide damage of about $800 million. (I am so optimistic aren’t I?) I can’t wait for that two to five inches of snow expected tonight and tomorrow. Climate change, ain’t it fun? It is never going to end…
Still, in a half-assed attempt at optimism, I’ll take the ice over the tornadoes back East.
February 6th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I feel your pain! It’s so icy up where I am right now. we don’t have the snow piles like you do, but there just isn’t any salt being put out! The town I’m in is really close to a salt mine too. but our Capital, Halifax is just taking all the salt because they didn’t stalk up over the summer. so the rest of us are boned!
Monday morning on my way to work I slipped and banged my knee up right good. and my leg still hurts as well as my arm from it. sigh. Maybe if we hope nad pray hard enough the winter will end soon eh?
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February 7th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Hey, you’re from Nova Scotia too? I am living in Dartmouth right now, and I have to say, if we are taking up all the salt, they’re not putting it to good use >:( The sidewalks were slick as hell last night and it keeps snowing, raining and freezing again all the time. I feel your pain Jaspenelle!!!
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February 6th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Wonderful! Lovely! Fantastic! lol
I hope your optimistic attitude is rewarded with some better weather.
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February 6th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Here in Raleigh, it was in the upper 70’s today.
But I still want to move to Florida/the Carribean; I don’t like cold at all. Some days I would be happy living on the surface of the sun!
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February 6th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Be careful when you’re walking around! Hey, at least when the pay
boxes are frozen, it is harder for someone to break into them.
As for tornados…thankfully they just skirted us here. The upside is the
weather is much warmer and so the ice won’t freeze.
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