We had a huge snowstorm yesterday. Downtown the snow mixed with the ice from the broken water line and made the streets a skating rink. Of course there were no plows in Cleveland. There never seem to be plows in Cleveland. It took me about a half hour to get out of the downtown area (and I park on the OUTSKIRTS of downtown), but once I hit the suburbs it wasn't too bad. It was slick and at times my vision was obscured---I drove 20 mph the whole way home---but the plows had already made at least one pass.

I realize that I just typed that driving 30 miles home at 20 mph in a snowstorm "wasn't too bad." This is how you can tell someone is from the Cleveland area. It'll be 23 degrees out and to us it feels "nice and brisk."

But seriously, I've driven in much worse. At least it was still LIGHT out, which makes a huge difference when you can't technically tell where the road is. They never plow my neighborhood roads so that was fun. I think I was driving over lawns but hell, how could you tell? I didn't hit anyone or anything and I didn't fishtail once, so technically I won the winter driving derby.

Last night we wanted to celebrate my birthday, but obviously driving out to the restaurant in a neighboring city was out of the question. We happen to live about a quarter of a mile away from a little Italian place, so since the roads hadn't been touched we just bundled up in layers and walked. Surprisingly, we weren't the only lunatics walking on the street, although we WERE the only lunatics who had walked to that particular restaurant. By the time we were done the wind had died down and the roads were sort of plowed.

Today we're out of coffee and are pretty low on food, so maybe when the wind dies down we'll take a walk to the store. When Bryan opened the front door it was brushing the snow, and our cars are totally blocked in, so I'm sure it'll be an adventure.

I love Ohio!