A cloudy Groundhog Day greeted us last week. Hurrah! End of winter. Spring is around the corner! Staying in a picturesque place, I started dreaming about the trees filling out again, nice smelling flowers blooming out and drives becoming more color filled.
But then trying to trust the weather to be consistent, is like leaving John Terry near anything in a skirt and expecting nothing to happen. So just a short week after promising the end of winter, comes the biggest snowfall of the winter. “UPTO 3 FEET OF SNOW PREDICTED OVER THE WEEKEND” screamed headlines. As if the headlines weren’t enough, out went reporters in oversized bulky jackets, caps and gloves and interviewed every man and his dog, coining the term ‘thundersnow’ in the process. Stock up on food! Stock up on gas! Stock up on drinks! States are in lockdown. Flights are cancelled. Schedules have been thrown into chaos. Superstorm after superstorm. All I need now is Donald Trump and his shimmering halo hair filling up my TV screen promising to give 5 million dollars to a local charity if President Obama keeps the snow from interfering with the latest episode of Celebrity Apprentice. Probably the Mayans were right after all, just a few weeks off?
Except, it is still winter. And this is Michigan after all. A place which can receive upto 25 feet of snow during the winter. 3 feet of snow? Big deal, we’ll just get our cameras out and make a postcard of the sight. Get the shovels out. Clear the driveways and head out to work. No impending doomsdays. No fuss. As one politico, who quite obviously forgot his script, put it, “Stay at home, relax and read a good book.” And that quite really, is it. Why all the fuss because winter suddenly decided to behave like winter? Of course, in places not quite used to the winter, this is a big deal. Kick up an almighty fuss in places where people have grown up with blizzards and snowstorms and you will be greeted with incredulous looks. No amount of cold is too cold. No amount of snow is too much.
As a once famous British poster, now popularized by endless memes goes, KEEP CALM AND KEEP BUILDING SNOWMEN.
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