Snowpocalypse 2008

Most places, when it snows you wait for the plow, or put on your snow tires, you scrape the snow & ice off your car and you get on with your life. In Seattle, you don't have snow tires (or plows). You might not even have an ice scraper. So what you do is just leave your car parked wherever it was parked 4 days ago, your work gets canceled, and you walk around everywhere. If you live on one of the city's big hills like I do, the roads all get shut down and you buy out all of the food at your neighboring grocery store and hope you survive.

But the best part about living on the one of Seattle's big hills that is filled with young people is that the hill gets shut down and what most people would consider an inconvenience turns into play. We walked down to the pub (in a snowstorm, ha ha), fell down on the ice a few thousand times, and then when we got down to the busiest intersection on the hill we found... a neighborhood sledding party! People in condos neighboring the main arterial had their windows open and fun music playing as about fifty people gathered in the street to sled down the main street. I saw a few snowboards (they usually stuck to the sidewalks), some skateboards with the gear removed, a surfboard (yes!), flattened cardboard boxes, tarps, trash can lids, and even a few sleds. Apparently someone even rode down on an ironing board.

It didn't match the thousands of people that poured into all the roads on the hills when Obama won the election (and there wasn't anybody playing a tuba this time), but the sense of community joy was the same. Say what you will about Seattle-ites being incompetent drivers in the snow (and they are... this is as much snow as they usually see in 8 years put together and no one is prepared), but I don't think there are many places where six inches of snow creates an impromptu midnight party with you and several dozen of your neighbors. :)