Gee, aren't you a nice neighbor

Well it snowed here. And then it rained. Roughly six inches of snow under rain to be exact. That equates to "damn heavy snow to have to shovel." Not only that, but folks, my driveway - ugh! It fits two cars across and roughly two and half down its length per side...meaning a total of five cars worth of driveway to shovel. Not little itty-bitty cars either, we're talking my van, a mid-sized sedan and then a 2nd sedan hanging off over the sidewalk into the apron a wee bit but not falling off into the street. BIG ole driveway.

Add to that the fact that we live in a raised ranch which means retaining walls down half the driveway length - this means when you want to remove snow from your driveway you must hoist heavy shovelfuls over the retaining wall - which may be over your head. Nice, eh? And then there's the front steps...and then the sidewalk...and if you're feeling like getting mail at all before the snow melts, there's a space in front of your mailbox to do.

AND, today is just the beginning. Its now turning back to snow from the brief interval of rain and its supposed to snow deep into tomorrow. Yet we all went out tonight and we shoveled - "we all" being every grown adult with home ownership. We went because shoveling heavy wet rained on snow is better than shoveling snow with a layer of ice from where the rain froze.

Well yes, thank you for asking, it would be wise of us to buy a snow blower. Its something we toss around from time to time and then we spend our money on something else. In the interim we have two adults with very sore shoulders, backs and upper arms tonight. Two cold adults.

But about my neighbor since that's what this installment is titled. Well my neighbor has a snow blower - or at least he's using one, it may be one he borrowed from yet another neighbor. The fool is aware that we have three shovels and two adults (don't ask about that ratio. I'm still trying to figure it out myself.) He is also aware that we have two young children and so clearing snow means either one of us works at a time OR we work at night when both kids are in bed because the little one likely won't nap off a body long enough for three of us to get front and work. Oh, and with "three" of us working, its likely the boy would just create more work for the other two of us. ;)

But whatever, he went out with this snowblower and he did his driveway. He did his sidewalk. . . and he stopped at the exact spot his property ends. EXACT! Do you think it'd have killed him to the extra few dozen feet between that property line and my driveway? Wouldn't it have been a nice thing to do. I mean really, its not like he was breaking his back shoveling or anything. He was pushing a freakin' machine. A machine that did his sidewalk down to concrete in minutes as it shot streams of heavy wet snow up on his yard like it was a pile of goose feathers.

I'm cranky. I know. My upper body is screaming in pain from the experience of shoveling. Yes, I am that out of shape and yes the driveway is that big and yes the snow was that heavy.