The chronic malcontent whines about "snowpocalypse"

I've had it with snow. After three windy blizzards in three days, I am ready to go back to bed to wait for spring. I'm fed up with seeing families cavort past my snow-covered steps, carrying their sleds and boogie boards up to the park. Wipe those smiles off your faces! Stop laughing! Don't you know some of us prefer to suffer?

This morning I swept my front porch and steps, cutting a narrow trail to a plastic-wrapped newspaper someone dumped on my front walk, a paper I never ordered and don't want. A few minutes after I ducked back into my warm cave, it started snowing again. Within minutes my steps were an inch deep in white powder, and it hasn't let up since. My friends in Minnesota are probably playing the tiny whiny violin right now, but they don't understand that Portland is not equipped for more than three inches of snow. The city is shut down, essentially. The MAX and streetcars are running just to keep the lines clear, but many buses are on snow routes.

Up here on the shoulder of Mt. Tabor, I've heard some snow plows go by. I rush to the window to see flashing tail lights disappear around the corner. Sometimes they leave a trail of gravel in their wake. But buses are as rare as blue whales. It seems we have been abandoned, here on the busiest bus route of the city. The last bus I saw gingerly turning the corner onto Belmont was early on Thursday  morning. Now it's Saturday. Apparently we have been forgotten by mass transit. If I want off this hill, I'm going to have to hike down.

Luckily I have food. As long as the power stays on, I'm good. And I have snow boots (purchased after the snowstorm of 2008, learned my lesson), if I really have to get out of here. Meanwhile, there's nothing to do but focus on the things I am trying to avoid. The things that scare me. Like... marketing.

I remember one memorable winter in the 1960s when it snowed for days. We kids were in heaven, digging snow caves in 6-foot drifts. It was so cold in our drafty old farmhouse that my family camped out in the living room in front of the fireplace. As a pre-teen, I loved it. Later, I can say that the prospect of enduring more winters like that one was why I headed south as soon as I was old enough to fly the nest.

It may be a couple more days until the mess outside turns into slush and I can get my car out. I look forward to the moment. By then I will be out of eggs and fresh produce. I fear my cat might start to look strangely appetizing.