Anxiety About the White Stuff

Having spent ten years in a place where I actually saw snow in July, Halloween costumes were typically covered by winter coats, and my eyebrows would frost from my own breath, I have to say that I do not miss a single degree of cold, a single crystal of frost or a single flake of snow.

                But, I find that winter in St. Louis does have its adjustments.

                Our first “snow storm” came right before New Year’s.

It was awesome.  About 10 in the morning, the snow started coming down fast in great big flakes.  A constant swirl of white danced outside my office window, and the longer it came down, the more stressed I got.

Why?  Because I don’t have studded tires on my car.

Instead of enjoying the beauty of snow falling, I was worried about my drive home.  Nobody in St. Louis has studs – and it was snowing.  Lots of beautiful fat flakes were falling to the pavement and I was convinced that any minute they would start accumulating and make my drive home a nightmare.

I thanked my lucky stars that I had had the foresight to get a room for the night after the New Year’s Party since I didn’t want to be driving home on a snow-covered road with a bunch of drunks turning their cars into toboggans. 

Anxiously, I checked the pavement out of the windows every hour or so.  I watched as the grass (which was still green) was slowly blanketed in cottony whiteness.  As the day progressed, a bit of snow encroached on the shady area of sidewalks.  Any minute, any minute, I just knew it would start to accumulate on the roads.

Right?

No, this is St. Louis.  In November, the roses were still in bloom.  Early in December, I was still wearing flip-flops.  And when it snows, even the first good snow of the year, it doesn’t mean that you have to break out the boots, wonder how long the line at the tire place will be, or leave the office 45 minutes early so that hopefully you’ll beat all of the people who decided to leave 30 minutes early. 

Yes, I know that St. Louis does actually have snow accumulate on the streets. On occasion.  And then it melts, quickly, into memory.  

Dancing in the New Year

 

Having survived the Mayan Apocalypse, celebrated the holidays with my family and friends, and packed away all trace of Christmas with the energetic, if somewhat unhelpful, assistance of my cat, the only thing left to do in 2012 was to greet 2013.  For the first time since I was in college, I celebrated with friends, both old and new; Auld Lang Syne took on new meaning.

                I spent the New Year’s Eve at the Midwest Dance Federation’s annual bash; I was one of the first people on the dance floor when the music started about 6pm, and one of the last to leave it when the hotel finally kicked us off the dance floor around 3am. 

                When I arrived, I was disappointed to discover that my table was as far from the dance floor as it gets.  This turned out to be a blessing in disguise however since I spent a large portion of the evening avoiding my table mates.  The table’s location gave me a perfect excuse to never be sitting there, except to eat.  (Note for next year: try to get a table together so you don’t get stuck with the luck of the draw.)  While most of my table mates were nice people, I definitely got some of the odd balls of the dancing community. 

There was the lady who alternately wanted to talk politics and give me her testimony as a Christian.  I got her life’s story, twice, maybe three times; I lost count.  Let’s simply say that my Meema’s advice about saying “hmm, isn’t that nice” when you really just need to bite your tongue came in very handy. 

                Then there was the drunk guy.  He was cute and interesting while he was working on the first glass of wine, but became progressively less so with each subsequent glass.  I felt sorry for his date; he said she was just a friend, but just because it’s a friend, you still should observe some social proprieties- like dance with her, not follow some other woman around the room like a lost puppy.  According to one of my friends, I did a pretty good job of avoiding him, but I guess I didn’t do as good a job of keeping my avoidance from being obvious to the rest of the world.

                But on a happy note, I met some awesome new dance partners.  Some of them were from out of town- Detroit, Chicago, and Jefferson City.  Others were local, but we just don’t cross paths frequently at the dances.  We danced East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, some slow dances, and a few line dances.  One of the guys, who I was dancing with at 3am, teaches West Coast Swing at the Rebels.  I was really glad that I had gone to the Rebels a few nights ago because every dance that I had with him at the Rebels gave me practice for the dance partners that I encountered last night who assumed that I knew West Coast.  A week ago, I could have stumbled through it, but last night, it almost felt like I was competent. 

At the stroke of midnight, I raised a glass of champagne and toasted the evening with my friends, old and new, and a warm fuzzy contentment made my evening complete.

Resources:

Midwest Swing Dance Federation:  http://www.midwestswingdance.com/

St. Louis Rebels:  http://www.stlrebels.com/

Southside Imperial Dance Club (my home club): http://www.southsidedance.org/