Practice What You Preach

A few tips on driving a 1997 Toyota Celica through a blizzard during which seven inches of snow have already fallen and another one or two are currently on the way:

1. Carry a snow snow shovel in your car. You will have to dig yourself out at least once for every mile you travel (statistics based on recent personal experience), so just plan on it, and have the right tools. A lightweight but wide plastic shovel is the way to go.

2. Come with the right gear: hat, waterproof coat, waterproof gloves, and substantial stomping boots. Bring the wrong stuff and you will end up wet and cold, which is no way to go through life.

3. Warm up the car. I am, to the likely disappointment of Al Gore, a big fan of this. Twenty minutes usually suffices to get most of the snow melted off of your windows. If you get sidetracked in your apartment and the car warms up for a half hour, don't feel too bad, you've only burned about 10% as much fuel as Al does in thirty seconds in his private jet.

4. Make sure your rear defogger works. If your car is more than, say 167,000 miles old, it may have developed some electrical problems which you may have put off fixing, the result of which might be to render rearward view damn near impossible, which is not good if you are considering attempting a parking-brake-assisted u-turn and need to know if there is someone behind you.

5. Attempt parking-brake-assisted u-turns. They are just a hell of a lot of fun, and also a very useful way to reverse course if you can't find a sufficiently plowed side street.

6. Don't slow down for anything, and definitely don't stop. Ever. The car is too light to start moving again in any substantial amount of snow, and mostly the tires will just spin for a while. You can get started, but it will take a while. Expect the sort of acceleration that would get you from a dead stop to the other side of the intersection in about eight seconds. If it's uphill, you're never going to get moving again ever, at least not forward. Either way, to be sure, just simply refuse to stop. Disregard stop signs, stop lights, cross traffic, law enforcement officials, pedestrians, migrating polar bears, etc. Momentum is your lifeline. Don't relinquish it for anything.

7. Don't turn left. Or right. During blizzards, intersections are dumping points for plows, and attempts to turn will leave you cursing, wheels spinning in the middle of traffic, so just forget it. Go straight, always. If you must turn, scout the intersection well ahead of time (driving while holding binoculars is dangerous, but well worth the advance notice) and be sure that they've been plowed. If you find an intersection that looks sufficiently plowed, only attempt a turn if you can also obey rule #6. If you're going to have to stop, then just keep going straight, even if it means going a few miles out of your way.

8. Accept the offers of any kindly students or law-enforcement officials who volunteer to push your car while you wildly gun the engine in hopes of a return to forward progress. These people are the saints of the world and will someday sit at the right hand of Jesus.

9. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt driving around without sunglasses for the better part of a half hour looking for your dentist's office in hopes of getting a teeth-cleaning before they close early for the day, getting stuck three times while pulling into the parking lot, enter the office to the applause of two hygienists and a secretary who have been watching your valiant efforts out their window, discover that you are in urgent need of a bathroom, use the dentist's office bathroom, exit that bathroom disoriented from frustration and snowblindness and dim indoor lighting and walk full-speed into a very clean floor-to-ceiling pane of glass that is right next to the open doorway you had intended to walk through. Do not do this. You will receive much sympathy from the office staff (following their loud, simultaneous cry of "Oooooh!" at your moment of impact), but this will not offset the bruise to your ego and left temple.

None of this, of course, even remotely dampens my entheusiasm for massive and repeated doses of snow snow snow. I wish it were still snowing right now. Bring it on.

Snow! Snow snow snow! Also: More snow!

Listen: There are some of you out there who are naturally, understandably anti-snow. It is, after all, fundamentally a pain in the butt in any practical sense of the word. When it snows that means it's cold, and all life activities are harder when its cold. Those of you who know me know that I am no huge fan of the cold, as there is a certain part of my being that must surely have been reincarnated from a brittle old woman who kept her thermostat at 75 from November to April. So yes, I'm with you. The cold is not fun. And again, I will admit that there is some definite hassle to the added winter element of snow. Driving is more difficult, cars must be brushed off, the cuffs of your pants get wet, etc. etc.

To you inside people, to you snow-haters, I say this: move south. If you're not sure if you have moved far enough south, wait for one winter. If you find yourself complaining, keep going south. Eventually you'll get to where you need to be.

The rest of us will be up here enjoying the hell out of the fluffy white stuff that we hope keeps piling up, week after week. Thanks to my current visits to a certain sweet girl who lives in Chicago, I've had more than my fair share of snow this winter, and we haven't even gotten to February yet! This makes for constant winter wonderland type situations, which are awesome in general and especially awesome if you are witnessing them with someone you love atop a 22nd-story roof deck next to a giant lake. To wit:


Though roof-decks are a pretty fantastic way to view a blizzard, the only true way to demonstrate your love of a winter-wonderlandish day is to bundle the hell up and go tromp around in it. And yes, you have to tromp. That's really the only way to do it. Throw on about sixty layers, cover as much exposed skin as possible, and go see some things. The world is covered with white, and it is tranquil, perfect, filled with joy. Sharing that walk with someone is even better, so find a tromping friend and get out there now please.




I love it I love it I love it.