Its Winter!!

Ahhh! You walk outside and take a deep breath. Every molecule that you missed with the kleenex is frozen instantaneously. The crisp, clean air, the smell of wood burning stoves, fresh snow on the ground. But this is the cold kind of winter. The kind that eats through your fleece gloves and where the wind feeds micro snow granules down the back of your neck by the handful. And when you're scraping the 5 inches of fresh powder off of your car... You know the part where you get it down your sleeve? Well micro snow granuals go farther. Maybe even to your elbows sometimes. Then you step into your old paint-peeler vehicle. You know the one... the one where the air diverter is broken and air only gets pumped through the defroster along the windshield. Yeah. That one! Its so cold that it takes a couple minutes to warm the transmission up enough so you can shift into gear. And while you're waiting the missing muffler is pounding out 150 decibels of pure Harley power...and slipping a little exhaust into the car while you're sitting still... you're slowly going deaf and seeing pretty colors. Then you get going and the snow powder you wiped under the blades is systematically fed through the air intake into the interior of the car...where it proceeds to all sneak down the back of your neck again. A little shiver goes down your spine. You creep out of the parking space and down the road. And then the fun begins. You know those garbage hard-rubber tires on your car? They're pretty awesome in the winter. Have you ever tried to ride a Big Wheel on ice? Well, probably not recently, but they've got hard plastic tires and no tread and they're usually pretty light in the front. You spin and spin and spin and spin, throw the wheel around...just having a good old time. Then after several minutes of chaos, the car responds to your coaxing and creeps into the next lane so you can turn at the light. Fortunately I have front wheel drive, but my tires are crap and my car is somewhat light. I feel like I'm a lame Shetland Pony trying to cross a frozen lake. It just ain't pretty. At least the heat works in my apartment, but we keep it pretty low so we can survive the electric bill. And my roommate drinks all my Dr. Pepper and doesn't put any cans back in the fridge so there are cold ones. Anyway, somehow I have to get my muffler replaced this week. We'll see how that goes. Its looking like temps are going to be in the balmy low teens for highs up here, and the forecast is showing loads of powdery neck-snow all week. As long as I stay here in my apartment curled up on my couch with 15 blankets and my warm Dr. Pepper, I should be alright. Lets just hope the internet doesn't die. I may not be able to deal with that loss...