The comments on my last post reminded me how very sweet the weather is here.

Despite some chilly May nights, we really have it pretty darn good.

I grew up in northern Maine, land of blizzards, icicles as long as your arm(for a kid anyhoo) freezing boogers and crazy-ass storms.

I used to love the lightning storms on the beach with the huge waves crashing up against the rocks, pummeling torrents of rain and wind that felt like it was gonna blow your HEAD off along with your hat.

Winter was badass there. Somedays you couldn't even find your car! The snowplows would trundle along clearing the highway and piling gigantic walls of snow alongside-which totally buried our vehicles in the driveway. I'm sure our parents were cussing to themselves but us kids LOVED it, 'cause we'd build forts taller than our heads and riddle the mounds with tunnel systems, thru which we'd chase our freaked out cats.

One time my mom was driving us home when a blizzard began. A blizzard is no ordinary snowstorm, you see, no lovely fluffy flakes falling gently to blanket the ground in a soft white blanket. OH NO. A blizzard is SNOW, driving, blinding, slashing, whipping, ripping SNOW coming down in your face and everyplace. If you're out in a blizzard you pretty much don't know which end is up and which is down. There are no landmarks beyond vague blurred shapes. Nothing but dizzying, exhilarating, scarey, wild, whirling, freezing WHITENESS everywhere.

So, there we were driving along, trying to guess-mostly by feel-if we were still on the road, when a familiar shape loomed up in front of us, it was the neighbors COW. At least we knew where we were now. We'd overshot a bit, we'd ended up a little farther on, in our nextdoor neighbors field.

That shit never happens in Seattle.