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Buried

"Two feet of snow" is an abstract concept until you try to move it around.

I did a little shoveling today with my landlady's ergonomic snow shovel, which is harder on every joint in your body than a plain old-fashioned snow shovel. I suppose it might be good for pushing small quantities of snow around, but the curved handle makes it murder for heaving mass quantities of snow out of your way.

I nibbled a couple paths clear: my entrance to the gate, my landlady's front steps (drifted thigh deep) to the sidewalk which had already been shoveled out by some saintly soul. I then took a break and waited for the guy with the shovel whom my landlady had engaged to do the shoveling.

A few hours a later, a kid with a shovel accompanied by his mom, also with a shovel, turned up and shoveled the path from my gate to the sidewalk. Like me, my landlady hadn't expected all that much snow and had selected her shoveler accordingly. So often in Virginia the winter storms never live up to the hype and we adjust our expectations accordingly. Our adjusted estimates of accumulation are usually pretty close. Not this time.

In the afternoon I used my Swiffer to knock the snow off Southern Lady's station wagon. Her car is now embedded in a waist-deep snowbank. (Where could I put the snow except beside the car?) Better beside it than on it. At least it's clean snow and will provide some protection if a salt truck comes through.

Tomorrow, seeing as how the Office is closed, I can do more shoveling. Maybe a little path back to the supercan so that we can take out the trash. (If I'd been thinking, I would have moved the supercan closer to the front of the house so we wouldn't have as far to shovel.) Maybe I'll start shoveling out a space for my car, which is still tucked away in the parking deck at work. I've got plenty of time to work on that. I can't even get to my car until the buses start running again.

Yes, my clever plan to avoid the vacuum cleaner continues apace. Shoveling is ever so much less work.