What the Heck is this White Stuff and Where's it Coming From?

One thing I’ve learned since moving back to the Midwest is never ever comment on the weather as if you have some sort of inside scoop on what Mother Nature has in store. This can only lead to bad things and some sort of pain.

I did exactly that in early March. I commented more than once how spring had come to Minnesota, how nice it was to see the greenery, and how winter was definitely over. I went to sleep one evening with the grass in my yard showing and was shocked to see nothing but big white mounds the very next morning. I don’t normally watch the news so I had no idea this was even coming nor did I hear the storm in the middle of the night. After scanning the yard, noting the height of the snow mounds and more than likely using a few expletives, I quickly deduced that any normal person would have awaken earlier than normal in order to allow extra time both for shoveling and the morning commute. I, of course, am not that bright and tend to live on the edge.

I estimated looking out my front window that the snow was probably about 5 inches high and more than likely I’d need to shovel somewhat to get my car out of the garage. Once the garage door was raised, it looked more like about 7-9 inches, at least in the path of my car, and shoveling was absolutely necessary. There’s simply nothing like waking up and immediately having to physically exert yourself while being blown with cold air. Well, perhaps it depends on the circumstances, but in this case…

The shoveling went by relatively fast since the snow was rather light and airy. Feeling confident, I pulled the car out of my driveway and started the morning commute. I made it to the end of the block and promptly got stuck while turning right at the stop light. This was mildly concerning since I could only get about 2 feet into the intersection before the light turned red again, and so I had to back up and then retry for the next green light. I sort of felt like the Little Engine that Could.

Getting to the highway didn’t seem to be too bad provided that you drive slowly. As I made my way on I-94 towards St. Paul I noticed a very bizarre sight…multiple city busses stuck diagonally on the side of the freeway, fully loaded with passengers staring blankly out the window. Perhaps it was the sight of all the white snow everywhere but for some reason it reminded me of a bus to heaven, perhaps carrying loads of individuals that were maybe in the “undecided” category, that is, not sure whether they were ascending upward to heaven or downward to that other place with weather like Arizona. Needless to say it was rather surreal. I later heard from the local news that over 100 city busses were stuck in the snow that morning.

My morning ride in to work was nearly over and all I needed to do was park my car in the parking lot. There’s one minor issue here, though, since they never ever plow the parking lot at all, and to make matters worse the lot entrance is on a tight right turn with a car on the right and a brick wall on the left. This made for a very anti-climatic end to the morning commute...I got stuck…completely stuck…and couldn’t move either forward or backward. Luckily (I use this term loosely), a man just happened to be walking on the sidewalk toward me.

“Are you stuck?” he asked. I looked at him like ‘Naw, I normally like to spin my tires for 5 minutes and move about ¾ of an inch. It’s fun!’ He crouched in front of my car and started pushing me backward, um, out into oncoming street traffic, that is. I was sure that someone was going to rear-end me so I immediately started trying to go forward again, which of course prompted this gentleman to bark at me. We did this for awhile, back and forth, and then finally he yelled out, “I don’t know why you people just don’t take the day off!” I know why, I thought, because I like to eat?! Instead of being a smart alec (my normal habit), however, I just smiled back, like he had just complemented me on my lovely new hairdo. He decided to get one more jab in and yelled out, “I don’t understand why you people don’t buy trucks!” This man evidently hasn’t bought gasoline in awhile, or perhaps his truck runs on the Fred Flintstone foot through the bottom of the vehicle principal.

My car finally got dislodged and the man that pushed my car yelled out “go around and make another pass”, sort of as if he was a member of my pit crew at the Indy 500. I didn’t want to argue and took his advice. This time I entered in a much more fast and erratic manner and made it through the threshold of the parking lot. It never felt so good to have my vehicle parked in a proper parking spot in all of my life.

The work day was rather uneventful and passed quickly. I just happened to have a ticket to see jazz vocalist Stacey Kent in downtown Minneapolis that evening and I wasn’t about to let the snow get in the way of it. I left work and headed out on the freeway. Immediately I noticed that my car was making a horrid ‘clunk, clunk, clunk’ noise that jerked the entire vehicle. I assumed that my tire was flat and promptly pulled off the road. Upon examination, all four tires were perfectly fine. I proceeded back on the freeway and still my car was thumping like crazy, especially over 60 mph. I decided to keep my speed around 50, something unheard of for me, and simply made the best of it. (I later found out that chunks of ice and snow will cake on to the inside of the wheel and in essence ruin the balancing of your tires. Once it got warm out again, about 2 days later, all was fine.)

After sliding around the streets of a nearly deserted downtown Minneapolis, I parked my car and made my way to the Dakota Jazz Club. The last time I attended a show here I was placed rather far from the stage so I had my hopes up that I’d have a better seat this time. I ended up with the opposite…I wasn’t near the stage, I was practically on it.

When the band walked on stage, they were almost standing in my dinner. In fact, to be totally honest, at one point I thought one of the guys was going to do exactly that, and he would have if he’d taken another step backward. Something tells me that my gnocchi wouldn’t have complimented his leather shoes and at least the colors would have clashed. At one point the band did a little instrumental and so Stacey Kent sort of walked off center stage and stood in the corner, my corner, and her butt was literally right in my face. I wasn’t too sure what to make of the whole thing or how to act. Should I look away out of respect or should I try to look cool while basically staring at this woman’s hiney? I wanted to be close to the stage, of course, but this was simply ridiculous!

The meal was a feast from the heavens. It started with beer cheese soup with truffled popcorn and Serrano pesto. The main dish was herb encrusted gnocchi with wild mushrooms, and for dessert none other than coffee and crème brulee. It was a tad pricey but worth every penny. After the first set, both Stacey Kent and her husband Jim Tomlinson were outside signing CD’s and I decided to pick up a copy of the new album. Jim looked at me and said, “Man, you’re mushrooms smelled so tantalizing!” Luckily I knew what he meant. He also signed my CD cover with “thanks for the mushrooms” so this event will live in history, at least in my CD collection. I also asked Stacey to play a request, a beyond lovely song called “Say It Isn’t So” and nearly fell over when she actually played it in the next set. In all of my years of concerts no one has EVER played a song that I requested, quite possibly because I tend to request obscure songs and not the trendier ones. Hearing it live was purely sublime and after it was over she said, “Gosh, I’ve forgotten how gorgeous that song is. Thanks for the request.” I think I melted and the waiter had to clean up the seat.

Both sets of the show were fabulous but unfortunately the end of the evening had come. I made my trek once again back home to Woodbury through the snow, the “clunk, clunk” of my wheels driving me nuts all the way. As I made my approach to my street I started wondering how much snow had accumulated since I had left. My guess was about 2 inches. I drove up to find that I couldn’t drive up…there was more like 9 inches of snow completely covering my driveway.

And so, at about 11:30pm, completely tired from a very very long day, I’m outside shoveling my driveway so that I can get my car in the garage. The snow from the morning was rather light; this snow, however, felt like shoveling big bags of ice due to it being so wet with moisture. As I shoveled I could remember my realtor telling me how I wouldn’t need a snowblower this year since we were having a mild winter. I must have cursed her name out loud in between the grunts of shoveling at least a half dozen times.

With a path finally cleared, I pulled my car into my garage, trying hard not to overshoot and end up in my living room. I was cold, exhausted, my back was killing me, and I couldn’t wait to get to sleep. Still, call me sick but it was a damn fine day.