A tumulus in the slush

Wednesday, glowing and slushy. We got 3-4" of the white stuff late yesterday evening, then it warmed up and this morning it was raining.  So the snow is slowly turning into slush, most roads are quite passable, and even the side roads are fine if you take your time and respect the layer of slush between your tires and the concrete.  In places the snow had been shoved aside, but in odd looking ways.  It didn't look like it had been plowed to the side so much as balled up here and there.  In the middle of our hill road, about half-way up from our house to the top, was what looked like a small tumulus in the middle of the road.  Maybe a Karmann Ghia stalled in the middle of the hill last night and got buried under snow?  Whatever the source of this mysterious new hill on our hill, the rain will excavate it today and reveal its secrets.

Since this type of weather also means it was a 4:00 AM wake up to make the open/not-open/delayed-open decision with our new president, and being one of those souls who stays awake once I wake up at all, I hit the road early and drove on in to campus.  Took Ruby rather than the Miata, mainly to get up our hill, and listened to NPR on the way in.  No iPod playlist to report, alas.  Nyja Lagio (Sigur Rós, from the Svefn-G-Englar album) is playing as I type, for the record.

Most of the commute was pleasantly pastoral.  The snow reflected the street light illumination and created a ground-up glow, light rain was falling across my headlight beams, and for much of the drive there was little or no other traffic on the roads.  NPR talked about the memorial services for the Arizona shooting victims, local weather and traffic conditions, and there was certainly more talking about other subjects, but I honestly cannot recall what it was. Riveting stuff, obviously.

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