Snowman's Revenge

[Alternate Title: Memory Wipe].

Maybe I've mentioned it in the past, where I like to have traditions and seasonal fun stuff. I think it's a crime to never fly a kite in the Spring, to go the whole summer without having at least one barbecue or sleeping out in the backyard, to skip out on the Christmas caroling.

So imagine my chagrin when the snow started melting and we still hadn't built a single snowman. Heaven knows we had enough snow to build a small army (visions of the snowman version of China's terracotta army dance through my head...only less menacing, right?)


Apparently, I wasn't the only person in town to catch the vision. On 16th Street, some enterprising resident built no less than twenty full sized snowpeople to populate the entire front yard. It was awesome. The kids and I kept finding reasons to drive by that house. We did snowman math, figuring out how many sticks you need for arms, carrots for noses, and pieces of coal for eyes/buttons (assuming, of course, that each snowperson had 2 eyes and 3 buttons). Sadly, the 16th Street Snow army was just a block away from a frat house, and it wasn't long before the front yard became the burial place of 20 snowpeople, cut down in their prime.

Still, no snowman in our yard. I tried. I sent the kids out - more than once! - to do it. But a lot of that snow came accompanied with below 0 wind chill nastiness. So no one was interested in freezing their little noses for snowman art. I bundled up and went out myself. On that day, the snow simply wouldn't pack. So I shoveled the front walk instead.

Last week, I stopped by a Seminary student's house in the morning to drop off item(s) left in my van. And there, on the street at the edge of his yard was a real life version of this:

I knew instantly it was the handiwork of my student. You would just have to know this kid. Granted, the snowmen actually crossing the road were only on the west-bound side, and they were only two feet tall. But still. It was glorious. While I was there, I saw a pickup truck approach, slow down, and then carefully drive around. Awesome. Next morning in Seminary, we talked about it. It has been pretty sweet, my student admitted, to watch people come down the street, stop, put on their brights to get a better look, get out read the sign... I actually went back to my house, grabbed my camera and went back to get pictures so I could post about it on my blog. But - as you may have guessed from the alternate title - some sweet, angelic technophile child wiped my memory card for me. Again. *sniff*

When the temperatures rose (above 40 degrees for five days in a row! imagine!), I was confident we had squandered an entire season's worth of snow opportunity. And then it started to rain, which sped the snow removal. Then, this morning, after hope and three days of spring rain and green shoots, it snowed. Wet, heavy, sticky snow. It had rained all night, and then turned into snow around 5:00 this morning. I drove to Seminary (no, they didn't cancel school, I checked) in some impressive slush. There was an earthworm apocalypse on the church sidewalks. It was tragic. My students came in for class, disgusted with the weather and Mother Nature in general. Especially the young man who wore flip-flops.

Momentarily, I toyed with the idea that this was a second chance for us and our snowman-less winter. But there wasn't enough snow to build with, and it's already mostly melted, four hours after it stopped. Plus, my kids are now repulsed by snow. After weeks and weeks of reveling in it, rolling in it and eating it with wild abandon, Lucy announced that she hates snow.

No snowman this year. I wonder if I can find a way to link it to global warming?