Snow!

 [I'm writing this almost a week after the fact, but back-dating it to the day it happened.]

This is October, right? The middle of autumn? Astrologically, if you pay attention to those things, the sun hasn't even entered Scorpio yet. Right?

Yes, that's what I thought. Thanks for the reassurance.

 

Only ... in that case ... why does my car look like this?

 

I'm in  Sticksville, of course. It's part of my travel for work this month, travel that I allude to here and here (for example). And it's snowing because, I guess, why not? One colleague in the office here (a native of Sticksville) tells me that in her experience the only month it has never snowed is July. It's not July. So sure, hell, of course it snowed.

 

The rental agency didn't provide me with a scraper for my windshield, nor with a brush for the roof. Probably they didn't think it would be needed yet, not this early in the season. And when I looked at the weather projections for this month, everything said it was going to be a lot warmer than this so I didn't bother to pack gloves.

 

This means I got to sweep the snow off my car with my bare hands, pausing after every couple of sweeps to try to warm them a bit because the cold hurt so much. And fortunately by the time I drove back to the hotel from work a lot of other cars had been driving across the roads, so they were more or less clear. The parking lot at the hotel had been at least partly shoveled, so there was no risk that I might fall and give myself a(nother) concussion. That's all to the good.

 

But I did find myself asking Marie why people live in such a godforsaken place. She grew up somewhere very similar, and said it's all about the bragging rights. And she reminded me that if I accept the transfer I've been offered, I can experience this meteorological unpredictability every single year.

 

Just bloody wonderful.