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There's at least 2 feet of it out there right now. I think it's closer to 2 1/2 feet and it is still snowing. The world has basically ground to a halt.
I can't get out of my condo complex. There's a 7 foot tall snowbank, graciously created by the plows last night, blocking in my car and the car of the other end unit in this courtyard. The mysterious car from last night is gone. I think the condo association had it towed. But it makes no difference. A 7-foot snowbank is a much of a barrier as an illegally parked car.
Little kids are making snow angels in the parking lot. The Beans of Egypt Maine (formerly known simply as "the new neighbors" ) are shoveling snow and banging doors to beat the band. I was awakened this morning around 6:30 by the sound of items falling from my kitchen windowsill into the sink. The Beans of Egypt Maine outdid themselves with the door slamming. Fortunately none of my vases broke or anything. Guess I'd better get busy taking stuff off the windowsills. The house shook so much that Wilbur leaped out of my cozy bed and ran downstairs to check it out.
I am still in my flannel pajamas at noon! I have no intention of going out to shovel until it stops snowing. The sky is a little lighter and the wind has died down so I think the storm is petering out. I'll fix myself some cheese sandwiches and tea and assess the parking situation.
In an unprecedented admission of powerlessness, I asked the Beans of Egypt Maine to shovel out my car. The youngest Bean is shoveling my walk. The Dad Bean moved my car for me - I gave him the key. The deal here is that the plowing contractor won't clear the courtyard unless all the cars are moved out when he arrives. He won't wait. So it's always a guessing game as to when is the last possible second you can move your car and not antagonize the plowing contractor.
I just heard a redwing blackbird outside over the shouts of the kids having a snowball fight. How incongruous.
I thought about buying one of them thar QuickCams to capture video of the storm yesterday for your viewing pleasure, dear readers, but by the time Kate and I got back from lunch in Marblehead I was not about to venture anywhere but home lest I end up spending the night on Route 128. This is a fear shared by many Massachusetts residents - basically if you lived here during the blizzard of '78 you have this weird post traumatic stress thing causing you to fear being buried by snow on either 128 or the Mass Pike. It's almost a Jungian archetype... So, no QuickCam. I just put some film in my camera and if dare venture forth - when the youngest Bean liberates my back door, which is currently solidly stuck in several feet of snow - I'll take some pictures and get 'em developed at CVS One Hour Photo if they're open.
I heard the redwing blackbird again. I'm not hallucinating. The mockingbird does not know that song. So, it really is spring.
My first plover warden shift at Plum Island is 11:30AM on Thursday - the day after tomorrow. Wonder if the plovers are even here yet...
I'd go back to bed for a nap right now but what with the Beans having my car key and the plow guy due any minute, maybe I should just chill out here in my office.
I made raisin toast with grape jelly and multi grain Cheerios with cashews and rice milk for breakfast and seven grain toast with organic sharp cheddar for lunch. A nice smooth Twinings Russian Caravan tea washed it all down and now I'm sipping water from my official Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society Strut for the Strays water bottle as I listen to the scrape of shovels and cries of children and redwing blackbirds not to mention the blue jays and robins and finches singing up a storm amidst the purr of snowblowers. I tried to record this but it's not clear enough. The cars and snowblowers drown out the birds on the 8-bit mono recording but not in real life.
The youngest Bean just returned my car key. I offered him money but he refused. He asked if he could borrow my snow shovel to finish his own walk. Of course I said yes. What was I gonna say?
I thought I'd try to record the redwing blackbird again but the snowblowers are drowning it all out in real life as well as in Simple Sound.
I wonder if I could get Lechmere to deliver me a QuickCam today? Boy what a fantasy that is! Lechmere delivering anything within the same space time continuum as you ordered it in would defy the laws of physics. Sunday at dinner my mother had something or other that needed to be returned to Lechmere. Billy's eyes lighted up. "I'll take it! I love to return things to Lechmere and make a scene. It's so much fun!" Hmmm, different strokes for different folks I guess. Maybe I should've asked him to order me a stove and a QuickCam... Naw, I'll order the QuickCam from MacConnection. Too bad there's not a "new stove connection".
The courtyard has been empty of cars since 1:30 yet there is no sign of plowing activity. The snow is hardening into barriers that would dent a tank. The word is the contractor is not coming until tomorrow. We're supposed to leave our cars illegally parked on the narrow one-lane street overnight? I thought about going to a hotel but that seemed stupid. My unit is habitable and we haven't been ordered to evacuate so I can't go to the National Guard armory cum shelter. Anyway, it's not I who needs a place to spend the night. It's my car. Sheesh!
The house just shook again. Twice. A Bean went outside and back in again. I'll get used to this but it'll take awhile. I've had all kinds of neighbors in that unit. The people who lived here when I first moved in fought all the time and sometimes locked their youngest kid in the hallway in his pajamas. He couldn't tell the difference between his front door and mine so he'd ring my doorbell to cry and beg to be let in. When his mother wasn't locking the kid in the hall and fighting with the husband she was interrogating me about:
You get the idea.
The people who moved in after the fighters left planted flowers in everyone else's yards, mowed other people's lawns randomly, and worried incessantly about my being "a woman alone". They would call up to tell me that my toilet was "running and running" after I flushed it. One autumn the guy pruned my rose bush radically. It died. He didn't apologize. As they got older they spent half the year in Florida so were never here in the winter. That was pretty quiet except that their toilet ran the whole time. After them was the drunken biker chick and her succession of boyfriends and roommates. Moving vans blocked me in at least once a month. Every time a new roommate or boyfriend or both moved in, she had a party. At some point, she acquired a pit bull. It would strain at its leash and bark at me whenever I went out my back door. Then came the Beans of Egypt Maine.
Door slamming, crying babies, smoking, and pot roast are not necessarily bad. Who am I to complain? I play loud Tuvan throat-singing and gasp shudder classical music (the bookphobic painter also hated classical music). And now my toilet actually does run for a long time after I flush it...
At some point this afternoon I developed cabin fever. I drove over to Andover only to find Starbucks, Bruegger's, Perfecto's, every place else, all closed. Nothing on Main Street was open except CVS. I picked up the Easter pictures from their one hour photo and grabbed a Coke from the McDonald's drive thru. How pathetic! I ran into one of the Starbucks regulars at CVS. She hadn't found anyplace to have coffee either. We commiserated.
According to the radio news reports, the state of emergency will last until tomorrow. Logan airport will reopen at 10:00 tonight. The T buses will start running again sometime tomorrow. Who knows when someone will plow my parking lot? This does not make the news.... Hundreds of thousands without power makes the news; 74 without parking is nothing. Not even a drop in the bucket.
So which would I rather have: coffee or parking? That's a toughie. Watch this same station for further storm-related dilemmas.
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