Ides of Snow Day

"It is getting dark and time he drew to a house,
But the blizzard blinds him to any house ahead.
The storm gets down his neck in any icy souse
That sucks his breath like a wicked cat in bed. "

Robert Frost (1874–1963), U.S. poet. “Willful Homing.”



There's something strange and wonderful about this 27th day of March.

It's strange, and I'm wonderful. (Yuck, yuck.)

After barely a flake of snow since Christmas and temperatures parked between 50 and 75 for weeks on end, the innocent Denverites had been lulled into giddy submission. No need to keep the freezer stocked with just-in-case-we're-snowed-in food. No need to count the potatoes, time the milk deliveries, or tune the snow blower. We were going to slide right into Easter without Winter.

Our household should have known better. Nothing brings on a good blizzard faster than Spring Break on the calendar. Shannon was home for it last week. No snow. That could mean only one thing.

We would have snow this week. Major league snow. Meredith is on Spring Break. And, it just wouldn't be like the previous six Spring Breaks in Highlands Ranch without the sight of deciduous trees in full flower, bowed by heavy, wet snow. That seemed to circulate repeatedly from the sky like a lake effect, without the lake.

I should be in the car, traveling to my new employer in the Denver Tech Center. But, we were sent home midday yesterday. The day started innocently enough. The signs and warnings were firing from every cylinder. But, I was in denial. Until an office President born and raised in Minnesota declared at 10 a.m. that he was going to close the office. That sounded serious. I thought he was joking.

It was. Serious. Not a joke. We forged ahead with our previously scheduled meeting. Within the space of the last half hour, the street conditions went from plausible to barely discernible. We could see it out the panels of glass in his 14th floor office. Still, I thought I would zip over to the grocery store, pick up a half dozen essentials, run back to the car, and speed to the house before conditions progressed to life-threatening.

Wrong again. Just the walk from the front door of our office tower to my car in the open parking lot -- couldn't have been more than 25 yards -- was a real-life comedy. I was coated in snow from head to toe while the inside of the car attained it's own fresh-powder dusting in the span of opening and closing the door.

Sideways snow. Horizontal, wind-whipped, cornflake-sized pieces of danger flew around with no strategic plan.

Ninety minutes, 1/8 of a tank of gas, and the view of three pile-up incidents later, I turned the final right from the neighborhood entrance for the house after the 12-mile journey. I knew what came next would present the greatest challenge of all.

Getting into the garage without hitting the dog.

I hit the button early. Right on cue, the door rolled up. She sprung from her house in the garage to see who was coming home. Meredith had brought her inside. Rightfully so.

In my little car, I must make the turn into and up the driveway in one, uninterrupted motion if I expect to land inside the garage. When there is already about a foot of snow on the driveway. I need for the dog to decide if she's going to venture out for a bathroom break or run back in horror to her house when she reaches the lip of the snow bank. I need for her to be clear of purpose, single-minded in her focus, and cognizant of the consequences should she elect to stand frozen in awe of the white wonder before her.

Nothing doing.

At the critical go/no-go moment in my trajectory, she decided not to decide. She was right in my line of sight when she finally decided that it was too cold, too wet, too snowy, and just too downright weird to do anything but stand right in my path with a look of "aren't you supposed to be at work" on her sweet doggy face.

I slammed on the brakes. That's when I know that one of only two things will happen next.

I'm going to slide down the hill into the street and take as many runs up the driveway as I need to get that car into it's side of the garage. Or, I'm going to leave the car in the driveway, parked at just the precise angle that no other car in the family will be able to get into the garage either. And, step into that foot of snow without boots, trudge through it with my three black bags in hand, leave all the wet clothes in the laundry room for another day. All while giving the dog that is already back in the doghouse a stern lecture about how she is really in the doghouse This Time.

It took seven runs up the hill. I was in the garage. I was in at the precise angle necessary to give the other car, behind me by mere minutes, the precise angle it needed for the driver to emerge without his door hitting my door.

All was right with the world. Sort of. The dog was in her house. Meredith was in her house. Mark was going to be in his house, God willing, in a few minutes.

On to the next question. Did we have internet?

Dueling laptops would be fired up, next to a fired-up fireplace.

Today, it's more of the same. The clock says I should be at the office by now.

I'm coming, I'm coming. The switchboard message said we're closed. But, we're not closed. We're just "working from home."

Easier commute this morning. Going to walk downstairs now and take my seat at the laptop table. With its 180 degree view of the Spring Blizzard of 2009.