mid-February

This has been the snowiest and coldest winter in Wisconsin in the past 30 years. Madison, just to the south, has had more snow than in any February ever, and it's only the 18th. Here, too, we are equaling records, and with about six more weeks of winter to go, are a good bet to shatter some of them.

A couple weeks ago - Groundhog Day, in fact - I was thinking, cool, whatever, I'm doing just fine in this snowy weather, six more weeks, or eight, that's not many, I'll be fine! This isn't hard, what do people complain about?

Yesterday I very bravely drove back home from Wausau on roads that were safe-ish, but not very clear. I focussed on staying in the ruts and going slow. I focussed on the red tail lights ahead of me and thought of nothing but lining up behind them - which technique almost made me head off to Oshkosh, but at the last minute I took my own bend in the road and became for a while the trail blazer for a line of trucks and cars. Near towns, where traffic slowed down, I guess the heat in the tires was less and the ruts tended to disappear, so you'd just do your best to find a line through the undifferentiated white snow field until some ruts appeared again on the other side of the town. I saw three cars in the ditch - one that looked like it had been there a long time, one with red tail lights still on, newly ditched, and one being elaborately towed out. People go in the ditch because they're going too fast. If you don't go too fast, you shouldn't go in the ditch, but there's always the rogue patch of ice that might sneak up on you unexpectedly. I pressed on, and made it home safe.

The drive to work today was dreadful, and home again pretty bad as well (two more inches fell today). Appleton is out of salt, like everywhere in Wisconsin, and the plow drivers have been doing lots of 16 hour shifts in a row so they're not all that prompt any more. Which is fine, but it makes driving actually dangerous, slippery, inconvenient, tiring.

When I was in college, in Ohio, which is in the "Gloom Belt", I remember February. Even though it's the shortest month it always seemed interminably long. Everyone joked that it was the month everyone contemplated killing themselves, or maybe their roommate. It was dark and cold, the snow had lost its novelty, the ice storms would knock the power out, the slip and fall on Middle Path on the way to classes wasn't your seasonal first one, it was about your 70th. Bah.

And here it is mid-February of the coldest and snowiest winter in 30 years, and yep, I'm there again. I'm tired of this now. I want to see the Melt. I want to drive up to a corner and be able to see around it into the oncoming traffic. I want to walk without worrying about the traction on my feet. I want to leave work when it's light. I don't want to scrape ice off a windshield at 6 o'clock at night, ever again, thank you. I want to just put on my brakes and know my car will stop. I'm getting sick of this.

Bring on the tulips of Spring.