A tiny, predictable rant about weather

By yesterday afternoon our side streets were almost entirely clear of snow. I was able to leave in the morning and get to to my novel revision class on the East side without incident, which was good because it had been six days since we'd left the house and I was going stir crazy.

I bet snow is really nice in places where the city plows the side streets. And where there aren't steep hills everywhere to go sliding down. Of course the entire time it was happening the internet had to weigh in on how wimpy Seattle-ites are and/or how the rest of the country doesn't understand our situation.

Whatever. Here's what happened: it snowed 9 inches at my house this week. When that happens, it is difficult to get anywhere reliably. You can improve your chances by living on the main drag (which gets plowed) or walking to the main drag to catch a bus or owning a Subaru (which can apparently tackle any weather condition).

Taking the bus means standing on the street for possibly hours, hoping one shows up and when it does, sometimes the driver (due to physics, not poor driving) can't get up a freeway onramp and no one can tell you where to go from there. So you end up hopping on a random bus that is standing room only and hoping it gets you close to where you need to go. God knows how you'll get home again because all the buses are also on snow routes, which are impossible to guess.

Or maybe I'm just bitter because that's happened to me. Too much.

This is the point where I fully embrace my crochety-old-person-persona.

When I first moved here, snow in Seattle was cute. Then I realized it's actually kind of dangerous. At one point this week, 230,000 people had no power. Some of them still don't. Some dude repeatedly punched a Metro driver in the face when he refused to pay the full fare, causing the bus to crash. People think it's acceptable to drive their cars around the streets with skiers hanging on to the back because it's fun. Whee.

You know, if you die in the snow, you die in real life, right?

Yeah, I get it. It snows other places. We're not special snowflakes. Suck it up. But it's these damn, wonderful hills we have in abundance that really make life difficult and different from other places. And the truth is, I can put up with the snow for a week at a time; as long as I avoid everybody else it's not going to kill me. But I'll be damned if I keep ignoring everybody making fun of us because we can't get out of our neighborhoods. Most of us really can't. Scout's honor. Heck, we haven't even had garbage collection in a week because the city can't get to our houses either. But you know what? We've had mail delivery every day. I think that's pretty freaking amazing.

The heroes in this situation are the city's bus drivers and mail delivery personnel. And all of the men and women working to fix the power outages. And the road crews clearing fallen trees. And everyone who can figure out how to navigate the arbitrary snow route system. You all have my respect and gratitude for keeping the city moving, despite or in spite of dumbasses riding around neighborhoods towing skiers and whipping them around corners.

Oh? Is my bad attitude showing again? Whoopsies. Maybe some more coffee will just fix that right up.

Happy Sunday, everyone!