As you know if you’ve read my About page or have been reading my blog for awhile, I live in Washington state. Wes, Aidan, and I call a small suburb about half an hour away from Seattle home.

As you can tell by how I referred to distance in terms of time, I’m not originally from here. I’m a California transplant, one of the most-loathed imports in this area for reasons inscrutable to me. I’ve lived here for twelve years, so I’m hardly fresh off the airplane anymore so I doubt anyone can tell I’m not a WA original.

Anyway, one of the things I’ve learned since moving here is that Washington is a state of extremes. If you have six inches of snow in a few hours one winter, you’ll probably get bupkes in terms of snow the next year. If you have one summer that’s blistering hot, with endless days sans rain or clouds, the next summer will probably be cloudy, humid, and blah.

Last year’s winter was mild, with hardly any snow worth mentioning, which means, of course, that this year was the SNOWPACALYPSE.

Snow in Washington is treacherous, which means that when it starts sticking to the roads you should probably hunker down and leave your car (or SUV) in the garage unless you absolutely have to leave.

Why? Because of HILLS! We have hills! Everywhere! Huge hills! Icy hills! Bobsled-run grade hills!

And ice! And other bad drivers (hi, fellow Californians!), and did I mention the hills that people slide off of?

It’s a mess.

Add to that a power outage thanks to snow-laden, frozen tree branches crashing down on power lines and you have a huge mess. A power outage is challenging enough as it is, but when it’s twenty-something degrees outside it can get downright perilous.

The one nice thing about the snow though? Refrigeration! Did you know that if you take all the food out of your fridge and bury it in the snow, it won’t go bad? The more you know.

Still, chilled food aside, the low outside temperatures can be a big problem. When our house’s temperature dropped down to 61 degrees after eight hours without power, Wes and I packed up Aidan and braved the mile-long drive to Wes’s parents’ house. They have two gas fireplaces that keep their place nice and toasty.

Plus, they have people to talk to there. After eight hours without power, Wes and I were starting to run out of stuff to talk about. And did you know that you can’t shoot zombies on your Wii without power? LAME!

Snow and utility woes be darned, we survived last week. Not only did we survive, we had a lot of fun. We played catch with Aidan in the snow, we played our guitar and clarinet for Aidan, and Wes gave our son his first snow driving lesson.

The biggest takeaway I got from that lesson? Don’t drive in the snow. It’s dangerous, and cars in the snow = death traps. I’m from California, you won’t convince me otherwise. I’d feel much more comfortable taking a dog sledding team to the grocery store.

I doubt the dogs would enjoy schlepping me and my groceries around, though. Too bad! I shall pay them with sirloin and all will yet be well!

Can you tell I haven’t left the house much lately?