Snow!

“I gave three quiet cheers for Minnesota. In Seattle a dusty inch of anything white and chilly means the city lapses into full-on panic mode, as if each falling flake crashes to earth with its own individual baggie of used hypodermic needles. It’s ridiculous.”

--Cherie Priest, Bloodshot

It's snowing in Seattle!  First snow of the year.  And it's sticking on my back deck.

I suspected this was going to happen, and just returned from a short walk that I realized might be my last walk for a while.  At least on non-slippery ground.

According to the weather app on my phone, we will be having snow, off and on, for at least the next nine days, with a couple of days with sunny breaks.  Lows in the low to mid 20s, and highs in the 30s.

Yeah, yeah.  Don't talk to me about polar vortexes (vortices?), and other phenomena endured by you folks east of the Rockies.  Everything is relative.  Here in the Northwest Corner, we've had an unusually mild winter, with highs in the mid to upper 50s.  It was so nice that it lead me to fear that the Great Trumpian Climate Change had arrived faster than expected. 

Will we have snow drifts?  Will we lie on the ground making snow angels?  Will friends come visiting on Nordic skis?  Will we build a Snowman and call him Parson Brown?

Probably not.   It's getting a bit late in the year for all of that.  Besides, in these parts, the Groundhog didn't see his shadow yesterday.  Springtime is therefore supposedly upon us.

But snow is nice.  Not slush, mind you.  Not the gray stuff they heap onto street corners in Manhattan.  But gently falling snow, kids shouting outside, snowballs being thrown.  Everyone excited.  Even -- secretly -- grouchy old folks.

Just so it doesn't go on for too long. 

"Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?"