Well, today is Valentine's Day. It is also a Snow Day. Our house is on a corner, which means we are responsible for shoveling twice as much sidewalk as the average homeowner. During our first winter in the house, we got a note from the city reminding us of our civic duty to keep our sidewalks clear. Since then, I have lived in fear of receiving another note, or worse, the critical and angry thoughts of our neighbors who are wishing we never moved in. In spite of these fears, I have never shoveled. Dan shovels when he gets a chance, but that is only on Saturdays, so if the snow falls on Monday, it has a long wait on our sidewalk. Many people walk their dogs past our house each day, and I imagine that each of them is silently cursing me for not being a better citizen and keeping their path clear. Yesterday I cracked, and after the boys got home from school, I left them inside with the baby and took the shovel into my own hands. Within one minute of wearing my flimsy little 2-pairs-for-a-dollar gloves in the sub-zero chill, I couldn't feel my fingers. So I shoveled a small patch near our driveway and ran inside. That was it. Now the patch is indistinguishable from the rest of the sidewalk, having received several new inches of snow in the night. I'll take comfort in this thought: our sidewalk is the best place in the neighborhood to pull a sled.
