I've Got the February Blues

It's nearly 9 a.m. in University Heights, and the straw is about to break the camel's back.

Already the inherent beauty of the morning has been shattered. I woke up freezing, powered through a cold shower, and found my clothes floating in pool of stagnant water in our broken laundry machine.

Running late I finally dash out the door-assuring myself it's 8:44, I've made it before-and as I close it, lock it and turn around my jaw drops.

There are at least three inches of ice covering my windshield.

"Yeah! Hoooo! I love it!" I shout defiantly. "Give me what I need!" I scream as my scraper and I hack at the humorless ice.

As I drive to campus, where the cars are strewn all over the slippery parking lots (now that everyone has forgotten where the yellow lines are), I think back to the first snow of the season.

Like the Inuit people have 100 words for snow, Buffalonians ought to have two concepts for winter.

"Winter, Part One" was beautiful. My friends and I were ecstatic when the first snowflakes fell gently over the city. We skied fresh powder, cheered at cold but invigorating Bills games, and walked through the light display in Delaware Park, coming home to a warm house and hot chocolate.

But it's February now. The thrill is gone.

And like a spurned lover, "Winter, Part Two" gets vicious.

Baird Point disappears against the empty gray sky as great lakes of brown slushy water collect in front of curbs and along the Promenade. Sticky salt rings form on the carpets and floors of buildings.

Snow that once lingered lightly on Buffalo streets turns black and grimy from months of traffic. City plow crews give up on Heath Street and it freezes into a sheet of ice.

Giant human-sized icicles slide off my roof and pierce the snow below. Students, exhausted by the months of cold, take incredibly circuitous routes through the tunnels and walkways to avoid going outside.

November is dreary. December is dark. And January is cold.

But February is the worst.

The general malaise that comes from four months of bundling up and the temperature fluctuations that cause hail, freezing rain and ice are bad enough.

But the most humbling parts of the Buffalo February are, ironically, the warm days.

There are a few glimpses of spring. You can hear birds in the morning. The days are longer and brighter (at least it doesn't get dark before 5 p.m. anymore).

Last Monday, it was warm enough to go outside without a hat or gloves. Though I could still see my breath it felt like summer. I couldn't believe it could ever be 50 degrees.

And every year, there's always one truly balmy day in late February. I remember as a kid going out on that one sunny brilliant day in a T-shirt and shorts, riding my bike around patches of snow.

But February is never willing to lose winter to spring. Its pride is hurt, and like an aging boxer, it goes down swinging.

As soon as it seems down for the count - and your dreams of warmth are realized for a fleeting moment - winter comes back with another icy blast. Though I ran in shorts last Monday, on Tuesday it was so slippery you had to walk penguin-style just to get from class to class.

And the tease of Buffalo's spring begins in February, but continues for months. In March of 2002 UB was actually closed because of gale-force winds. There's usually one snowfall in April or even May.

We're not really out of the clear until graduation. It should be considered false advertising for UB to hold a "spring semester" at all.

Thankfully, though piles of snow in the parking lots often soldier on for weeks, spring will finally win. The sky will be blue, the wind will relax and winter will gasp its last breath.

Till then I'll be scraping and sloshing - and hopefully waking up a few minutes earlier after icy nights.

I've got the February blues.