Rant #2,588: Stop! Stop! Stop!

 

Well, it snowed again in my neck of the woods.
 
This one wasn’t as bad as the last one, as we got about a third as much snow as the previous storm, so we received five or six inches this time from the heavens.
 
But it has to be cleaned up, which as you know I just love to do, and I will probably have to do downstairs and help my wife to get rid of this stuff right in the middle of typing out this Rant.
 
I will let you know when I have to do this.
 
Anyway, Super Bowl Sunday was to me a Super Dud Sunday, as we were stuck in the house all day by the storm.
 
I also watched the New York Knicks lose their afternoon game, so it was two and a half hours of torture.
 
Then, in the evening, there was nothing on TV, of course, so I put on a movie, which actually looked promising, but by about 8:30 p.m. or so, I guess my body had had enough of sitting on the bed all day, and I just conked out.
 
Uh oh … I have to go downstairs to shovel snow … I will be back in a few minutes.
 
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock …
 
I am back!
 
The snow was pretty icy this time around, and it took a little more elbow grease to remove it, but mission accomplished! Now my wife can happily to work (not) and I can get out to where I have to go today.
 
What a mess!
 
And we are supposed to get a bit more this week to add onto what we already have.
 
This is a true embarrassment of riches, isn’t it?
 
Honestly, we were due to a winter like this.
 
The past few have been very mild ones—last year I think I shoveled twice and the two snows we got weren’t to bad at all—so this year we were due, and we were paid back in full.
 
My worry is that these snows are going to impact my family and others in ways that we never could have expected a year ago.
 
Yes, I mean in battling this dreaded scourge that we are fighting right now.
 
My mother has to go in for her second vaccine on Thursday, and wouldn’t you know it, more snow is predicted for that day.
 
She has her appointment for late in the afternoon in the county hospital, so we know that the hospital is open every day no matter what the weather is, but right now, I am wondering if they will be open to dispense the vaccines if the weather is bad—and if not, when the makeup day will be.

This will impact my mother and thousands of others at a variety of sites dispensing the vaccine on that day.
 
But I guess since it is only Monday, I will cross that bridge when I come to it. Let me deal with today first.
 
Funny, as the snow was coming down yesterday, my wife looked out the window and said, “It sure is pretty out there.”
 
I replied, “You won’t think it’s so pretty when you have to shovel it.”
 
And that is the reality of the whole thing.
 
Snow is pretty, and when you are a kid or you have absolutely no responsibilities when it snows, it remains pretty.
 
But when the flakes start piling up, the prettiness factor is gone, and the reality factor sets in—you are going to have to clean up this stuff, and it isn’t an easy task.
 
So yes, I absolutely hate the snow, and the last few years have lulled me into a state where I wasn’t worrying about the winter anymore.
 
But alas, that was all just a tease … we live in the northeast, and we are going to get the white stuff whether we like it or not, whether we are prepared for it or not.
 
Gosh, I wish I was a kid again, and could just take out my sled and go down the hill by the first mall, which I did during just about all the snows I had when we lived in Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens.
 
But those days are long gone, as long gone as the hair on top of my head is.
 
Forward march!
 
Mush!