OK, I realize I’m mixing my metaphors, or at least my cereal marketing material, here. So before launching into this week’s discussion, let’s just clear it up. The Breakfast of Champions is Wheaties, a General Mills product. And Rice Krispies, and its near-gnome pixies, are Kellogg.
Moving on.
Today is April 17, and those of us altitude dwellers are experiencing something we haven’t seen, felt, or heard from for the entire winter: a bona fide snow storm. I think Ma Nature’s internal chronometer must be off a tad, since the 2008-2009 winter has been characterized by constant raging, howling wind (something we don’t get all that much of in this part of the county) and fairly moderate temperatures.
But if you live in the highlands of CO and look out your window today, you may be humming, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” Granted, as a state, Colorado is known for getting its heaviest snowfalls in March and April. The reason for this is that the temps are warming, and the flaky stuff starts to aggregate in the upper atmosphere. So by the time it makes its way to terra firma, it lands with a mighty smack. This is au contraire to a typical winter scenario where the temps are nose-hair-numbing cold, which means the snowflakes stay small, falling like sugar and taking considerably longer to accumulate on the ground.
I love the snow, and am very glad to see everything become White World today. Not only can you see the stillness; you can feel it. Traffic slows down, people’s temperaments moderate, and things are just, well, generally calmer. As the sun goes down, the day takes on a hushed steely gray appearance. On the down side: the trees are heavily snow-laden, and you wonder just how much more weight they can take before the branches start to break. Years ago, my mom and I got out in one such snow storms with our brooms and tapped the snow out of the aspen trees. My dad thought we were nuts. Some of the aspens are still bent from the event all these years later.
What does drive me to distraction, however, is the constant snap, crackle, pop as I “try” to listen to Sirius satellite radio via my subscription to DirecTV. It’s an irritation that comes and goes with the signal.
I guess I should be thankful I can even hear anything. Just like the aspens and pines, our electrical lines are bowed and stretched to their weight-bearing limit. The inevitable power failure is looming. And brief or otherwise, it will come like clockwork.
As anyone with mountain-living prowess will tell you, days like this have to be carefully orchestrated if you plan on getting certain things done. Item one: check my email, schedule a telephone interview for an article, and run my antivirus software. Done. Be glad you have a battery backup to shut the computer down properly.
Item two: take a shower. And that’s not as easy as it sounds.
Showers have always been rituals for me, and I’m one of those who enjoys a prolonged dippy-dunk. But like so much of life up here, hitting the shower is a complicated endeavor when we have weather events. Because the vast majority of us are supplied by wells, the pumps of which reply on electrical go juice, one can get caught with a soapy head or lathery body if one isn’t mindful of the tic-toc. Nothing stranger than feeling clean and slimed up all at the same time…
After doing my computer chores, I figure I better not test fate and head straight for the shower. I am OK so far, performing each of my ritualized tasks post haste. Yesterday’s grime is swirling down the drain pipe, and I grasp the knob to turn off the water. And as I make the gentle downward motion to close the valve, both the water and the power shut off simultaneously. My fingers pulse with the power of a superhero…for all of 3 seconds.
When the power comes back on, I am able to complete the only other remaining task that requires electrons: blow drying my hair. I do so amidst a flurry of brownouts, but get the bangs done, and let nature take care of the rest. From here on in, it’s smooth sailing because nothing else requires anything other than natural muscle. Clean and renewed, I can look inevitability in the face and smile.
A lot of people move to the mountains completely unaware that it is, as my cousin Robin observed a number of years ago, an alternative lifestyle. You don’t fly out of here for a quick run to the grocery store because you forgot the chocolate chips, for example. In addition to the fact that the closest grocery store is 14 miles away, you may not physically be able to leave your domain because the local Road and Bridge Department, known for its ineptitude, isn’t going to plow the major roadways if the kids don’t have school (which they don’t today). This, of course, assumes you have a 4-wheel drive vehicle with sufficient ground clearance.
If you don’t have some form of alternative heat that doesn’t require electricity, you will be officially screwed and chilly to boot. I do have electric heat in the house, something that would cost me the economy of a third-world nation to use. Instead, I keep myself toasty warm under any winter circumstance because I heat my house with a wood stove. Then there’s cooking, which you won’t do if you don’t have a camp stove. Storm days are generally not good days to think about laundry. It wouldn’t be a good day to have a major health issue like a heart attack and require medical attention. The closest hospital is about 45 miles from the middle of here.
Well, time to cut this short. The power just went off.
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