Well, we talked about the first snow last week. And I thought that this year, it might be fun to keep count of how many snowfalls we have. I’ve never done that before.  Last night was the beginning of our second snowfall.

It started suddenly and was nasty driving home. In fact, my personal day started with flaming cheese toast, and ended with hyperspace snow. Do you know what hyperspace snow is? It’s when you’re driving and the snow is coming at you so thick and fast and sideways that it looks like what happened when they made the jump to hyperspace in Star Wars.

My windshield does not look like this. But the world outside did.

With Snobama last week, they had the snowplows mobilized before the first flakes hit the ground. Everyone was bustling around the CDOT garage when I passed it on the way home. Last night, not only were there no plows (okay, it was a little early to plow), but there were no sand trucks, and the roads were really slick.

Still it was cozy to be home, albeit around 9:00 pm after a too-long day at works. I was guardedly optimistic about being able to work from home today, but alas, the company was open, and my computer, which I brought home with me, was acting like a high schooler refusing to get out of bed in the morning. I kept poking it to try to make it wake up. It would flash me a look, grunt, and go back to sleep. After 20 minutes on the phone with the Help Desk, I gave up the ghost and decided to go into the office.

The windshield wipers worked this morning, and the snow, while deepish, wasn’t bad to scrape off the truck. Though even saying that I scraped snow off the truck inspires a fresh wave of nausea.  I think someone needs to remind me why I live here.

They said on the TV that the buses were running 15 minutes late, which is fine to say that on the TV, but if no one tells the buses that, then you can’t risk showing up for your bus 15 minutes late, because chances are, it wasn’t. Although this time, it was. In fact, it was 40 minutes late. So rather than sit in my puffing car, tempting carbon monoxide poisoning, I stood in the freezing cold for 40 minutes. This bus stop has no benches and a shelter that consists of a three-sided, metal, open-grill enclosure, which offers no shelter from the storm. By the time the bus decided to arrive (maybe it was acting like a teenager too), I couldn’t feel my toes, and any semblance of revelling in the lovely twinkling snowflakes was gone with the bitterly cold wind.

While I was standing there, trying not to be cold, I decided that if I’m going to count the winter storms, I might as well name them, just like they do hurricanes, except not quite so traditional. Already helped along in this mission by Denver’s creative masses, we had a name for our first storm. Now it’s up to me to label this one. And we’re expecting a third storm on Saturday that some say will be worse than this, while others say it will merely be a few droplets of chilly camel spit.

I realized also that, as a new homeowner, I probably am supposed to be shovelling my sidewalk.  They have kind of a Snowy Sidewalk Nazi mentality in certain parts of the County, and have been known to throw little old ladies in jail with hardened criminals for violating the “keep your sidewalk free from snow” laws.  I don’t know the general attitude of MY town towards this, but I noticed an awful lot of clean sidewalks on my drive to the bus stop.  Which means that I need to get a snow shovel. And a younger back. I wonder if there’s a place I could pick up both? And a million dollars? And my house in the tropics?  Sounds like I’m looking for “All-Mart”.

Now, I’m grudgingly ensconced in Cubeland, instead of snuggled on the Red Couch, but I am being pleasantly productive. I hope to get home by morning. And I’ll leave you with the beginning of the running list of named winter storms:

1.   Snobama (October 26, 2011)
2.  The Storm of Great Grumpiness (November 2, 2011)

Stay warm, wherever you are. But if you ARE somewhere warm, no gloating, or I’ll be forced to hunt you down and put snow down your back.