Apres Stella, Home

When I got up this morning, the lights were on, the wind was fairly calm—for March... it's been blowing steadily for days—and it was snowing, but lightly. The forecast, however, had done a 180, and while there was still a semi-ominous Winter Storm Warning in place for this monster named Stella, there was now lots of rain in the offing, as the nor'easter decided to track a bit north of the earlier prediction—a route that would spare us the "worst" of the snow... darn, even without the generator, I was hoping we'd get whacked... and a route that would not have me, at the height of the gale, outside in the cold and dark screaming, a la Marlon Brando, "Hey, Stella!" In the end, the lights never went off, which is a requirement for any storm aspiring to greatness, and while we received about six inches of snow in one, truly-impressive morning burst, the white quickly changed over to gray. The wind continued to howl. The storm passed. I shoveled about three inches of slush off the driveway. Then it got cold and everything froze solid. I never even got to ski. Stella, elsewhere a record-breaking storm, was, on the ridge, a definite bust.