A week after the storm, huge frozen mounds still line the streets. Parking lots and malls are framed with ugly black and gray snow. Lawns that used to hint dying grass now offer little or no hint of grass at all; just the white snow, once billowy and beautiful, now crunchy and bothersome. I will never get over it. The people function as if it's not even there. I gawked like an 4-year-old when it began to snow, and then was baffled and pained on Monday, when I was still expected to show up for work. People wear their boots and hats and gloves and scarves and carry on through the slush like Eskimos in the summertime. It's funny watching the people up here react to winter. Some people welcome it, other people loathe it. Some people have their cute hand knitted scarves and matching hats and gloves on with the first hint of the arctic breeze. These people think that they look cute in their winter things...and are probably also the ones that are wearing tank tops and short shorts with the first hint of above 60degree weather. Then there are the people that are too cool - literally - to zip their coat, or wear gloves; This being my first winter with an actual winter coat, I zip that thing up! It makes a difference, though I'm overheated on the train into work every morning.
As I ride in, the snow changes the look of everything. I can follow footprints through fenced yards, and tire tracks through parks. I watch the SUVs and Jeeps drive like maniacs all over the ice. They think that 4 wheel drive equals immunity to slippery ice.
One year my mom was up here briefly during the winter. She remarked on how "bleak" it was more than once. She talked about how it's been proven that places with colder and longer winters have higher suicide rates and higher rates of medicated people...anti depressants....maybe that's what I need. I don't feel depressed...just homesick sometimes.
Today, a man trying to avoid a huge snow mountain on the side of the road almost drove us into oncoming traffic. My husband layed down on his horn, and the other guy began to yell and curse out the window and proceeded to call my husband a f-ing idiot, and then stopped at the light ahead of us, and continued to yell until you could hear his kid crying in the back seat...then he rolled his window back up....Back home, you may get the finger; Back home, you may get honked at; Hell, someone may curse under their breath, or with the window up...however, in GA people either don't care enough, or are in too much of a hurry to attempt to try and argue in the middle of traffic...
And this is the city that loves me back...yeah....okay.....
As I ride in, the snow changes the look of everything. I can follow footprints through fenced yards, and tire tracks through parks. I watch the SUVs and Jeeps drive like maniacs all over the ice. They think that 4 wheel drive equals immunity to slippery ice.
One year my mom was up here briefly during the winter. She remarked on how "bleak" it was more than once. She talked about how it's been proven that places with colder and longer winters have higher suicide rates and higher rates of medicated people...anti depressants....maybe that's what I need. I don't feel depressed...just homesick sometimes.
Today, a man trying to avoid a huge snow mountain on the side of the road almost drove us into oncoming traffic. My husband layed down on his horn, and the other guy began to yell and curse out the window and proceeded to call my husband a f-ing idiot, and then stopped at the light ahead of us, and continued to yell until you could hear his kid crying in the back seat...then he rolled his window back up....Back home, you may get the finger; Back home, you may get honked at; Hell, someone may curse under their breath, or with the window up...however, in GA people either don't care enough, or are in too much of a hurry to attempt to try and argue in the middle of traffic...
And this is the city that loves me back...yeah....okay.....
2 comments:
You lived pretty far from the ATL... I got in trouble in traffic all the time. Well, that and I drive like a pyschopath, what with being a psychopath and all. El Paso doesn't have much traffic... the only real feature of the roads is the amusement I feel when an El Pasoan panics when there are 5 cars at the light.
I did live in Atlanta for a time...and spent most of my time there....
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