Winter Wonderland

This weekend, Seattle got its first snow of the winter. Some years, snow in Seattle never falls. Or there will be a one and only snow. This winter, we're having our third snowstorm tonight. I hope it ends soon.

I'm a winter gal, both by when and where I was born (Minnesota in January), so there's a lot I like about winter. Unfortunately, in a place like Seattle, winter can't quite make itself at home and we can't quite get comfortable with it either. The temperature either hovers around freezing, creating ice, or it deep freezes the city which is used to winter temperatures in the 40s most of the time.

Added to that is the fact that very few people in Seattle know how to drive on snow, and even those that do tend to be a bit confounded by the size of the hills encountered when trying to get around the city (many of which get closed when it snows).

All my friends seem to have horror stories from our second snow storm, which came through Monday night (5 hour commute with 2 hours on foot, a bus that just refused to go any farther, or just getting trapped by ice). My story just involves waiting for buses in 20-something degree weather. Monday night, it was 25 minutes for the first bus and another 25 or so for the second bus. Last night, it was 60 minutes downtown waiting for any of 3 buses (I waited about 25 minutes for a bus that was 16 minutes late when I left; then I waited over 30 minutes for either the 6:30 or 6:44 bus, the latter of which finally came at 7PM).

One forgets living in such a temperate place such as Seattle how painful and tiring the cold can be. After being outside for 40 or so minutes with no sign of a bus, I was on the verge of tears. When the bus finally came, my toes hurt.

I really did enjoy the snow the first night. And even the second night. There is something magical in the beauty of falling snow. But a city paralyzed by cold and ice is not a fun place to be. It's been sleeting outside for awhile now, and it is supposed to freeze overnight. The city will be a skating rink in the morning, and there is no fun in that.