Nothing but the rain

[jjtaylor]

A funny thing about winter storms: sometimes the weather getting warmer in the middle of a storm is actually a bad thing, because it means it rains all over the snow, which turns into slush which is, a bitch to shovel, being twice as heavy, and dangerously slippery. What's even worse is when it then gets colder after all the rain, turning all that nice slush into a ridiculously jagged, barely-navigable wasteland.

This is where it helps to have a healthy inner voice to keep you motivated when you're shoveling, especially when you've just come home from work and you're shoveling in the dark. You have to ask yourself, "How will I feel if it looks like this in the morning?" because there's a pretty good chance that it will freeze overnight exactly as you left it. If you've been good and worked your shoulders hard and cleaned all the slush, you might be lucky to get away with a thin covering of ice all over your otherwise cleaned-up driveway/walkway/escape path, or, if you're less lucky, black ice, which is basically the same thin covering of ice, just fucking invisible.

Also, I have a feeling I may now be really excellent at curling, since shoveling slush isn't so much about lifting as it is about pushing with grace.