I object.

One of the things you learn living in these Hyperborean climes, after a few winters, is that (most of the time) there is no double jeopardy.

By which I mean that, looking at winter’s two Great Evils—bitter cold, and snow—you generally get one or the other, but not both. If it’s snowing, the temperature is probably fairly mild, because extremely cold air is dry. If it’s very cold, it probably won’t snow.

The terms of that armistice were treacherously breached today. We only got a couple inches here, but it blew hard, and was enough to put me behind the snow blower after work tonight.

(Oh, that’s right. I didn’t tell you about my snow blower. We had several inches of heavy, wet snow on Christmas eve, and my neighbor who generally blows out our shared driveway was out of town [as he tends to be, suspiciously often, when this sort of thing happens]. The weather forecast called for more of the same on Christmas day. I stood in the driveway, leaning on my shovel, trying hard to breathe [I’m fighting bronchitis], and thought, “A snow blower of my own isn’t in my budget. But you know what? Having a heart attack isn’t in my budget either.” So when the driveway was clear, I employed it to drive away to K Mart to buy an 8 horsepower Craftsman snow blower. I knew I’d get a better price if I waited till after Christmas, but that would mean another day’s shoveling.

The Christmas day snow wasn’t primo stuff for blowing. Very heavy and wet (what some of us [or me, anyway] call “coronary snow” in these parts). But tonight’s snow (where was my neighbor? Probably someplace warm, I’m guessing) was as granular as Sahara sand, and fine as mummy dust.

I expect it’ll all blow back in, with the strong winds expected tonight. But I made the effort. My dad would have been proud with me.

Except that he’d have said, “You missed a spot. Over there.”