The first snow

The first thing I did when I got up this morning was take an aspirin and get a second cup of coffee started, because I could tell it was going to be one of those mornings. But then as it got light out, I noticed what looked like heavy frost outside.

But around here heavy frost is unlikely because the ground is normally too dry. If there’s going to be frozen moisture, it would have had to come from the sky. Sure enough, by the time I was heading out the door, it was snowing again.

One cool thing about my mornings is I often run into my neighbor on the way out. We leave at the same time (if I’m running 5 minutes late). Her name is Ira or Ida, I forgot which. Anyway, it’s nice to have someone to greet in the morning, and exclaim about the snow together.

The other great thing was I actually had a scraper in my car. Amazing! I don’t have any curtains on my windows or plates in my kitchen, but I have a scraper in my car. It’s surprising too, because I don’t think I’ve used it for about 5-6 years. Seriously, we had such a mild winter last year – it only snowed once – and I never went anywhere anyway – that I don’t think I ever had to scrape. And before that we were in California for 4 years. But lo and behold, a scraper waiting patiently for this day on the floor of the backseat, right behind the driver’s seat. My faithful scraper.

It snowed lightly all the way in to work, swirling dryly over the roads. Luckily I had only just yesterday figured out my best route to work. The casita I was renting was only about 5 blocks from work, so there really wasn’t route options. My new house is about 15 minutes drive. I’ve been trying different routes. The google maps route is the fastest, but the traffic is difficult – high and variable speeds, lots of lane changes, etc. So I briefly tried to design a complicated route through the residential areas, but it was confusing, poorly lit, and surprisingly heavy traffic anyway.

So now I’m just doing the most direct route – which is a multi-lane, major arterial cutting a straight shot through several miles of commercial establishments (strip malls, grocery stores, hotels, etc.). The downside is that there are tons of streetlights and lots of ingress/egress from all the stores. It’s a very slow slog. The upside is it’s simple and direct, and traffic proceeds slowly and orderly (for the most part). Anyway, the slower speeds and straight route was what I needed to navigate the blowing snow.

By mid-day it was wet and slippery.

Then it refroze, and by the time I left work at 6pm it was iced over. Luckily the major roads had dried before it iced. But my car was iced and there were patches of black ice in driveways and out of the way places.

I guess winter is here. And it’s beginning to feel like Christmas! Yesterday they decorated the lobby at work.

I’m realizing I should update my own office décor, which is leftover from Halloween.

I was thinking my pumpkin theme would be fine through Thanksgiving, so I’m still good, right? Then I realized, oh, wait. We already had Thanksgiving! John and I didn’t do the turkey thing. We drove to San Diego instead. So I forgot we had Thanksgiving. It’s already a week into December! I owe you those San Diego pics. Maybe I can get those posted this weekend!

Meanwhile I really ought to change out my desktop photo and my pumpkin plant pot with something more in keeping with December themes. Quick, anyone have a cute winter pic I could use?