Surprise Sunday AMA post
AMA you're willing to attach your government name to :)
Hi y’all,
A few Sundays ago, I tried doing a Substack chat for the first time during one of my writing/plotting sessions.
One of y’all, Thomas Broussard, one of my oldest friends from college, commented, but I only just saw this today, so I’m going to answer now and launch an AMA out of it. :)
The short answer is that the neighborhood where I live got several feet of snow. My house is elevated about 5 feet and the snow completely covered the front stairs and started creeping a few inches up into the doorframe. I stayed inside while it was actively snowing, just opening the front door occasionally to check how high the snow was getting.
Once the snow stopped, I went out and cleared the snow off of my steps with a household broom while it was still soft and fluffy, using my rain/mud boots since I don’t have snow boots or proper snow equipment except for a couple of warm coats I got at the LL Bean outlet when I visited Ohio in January a few years ago. I had to be cautious and slow since I fell a few weeks before the snow and my left knee was still pretty messed up (it still is - more on that in a future post).
You can see how valiantly the sun is trying to get to the front of my house. That strip of already cleared cement is probably where the water pipes are under the sidewalk/driveway, I’m guessing. After sweeping the snow and widening that path, I salted all of the concrete surfaces and a lot of the snow itself to add some friction as the snow melted/turned into slush and ice. I might have forgotten almost everything I ever knew about snow as a baby and toddler growing up in Germantown, Columbus, Ohio to a bunch of hardy German Americans, but I do remember a few things.
I continued to photograph the snow as it melted (from inside the house) for a few days and then the day before I was due to return to work, I decided to walk around the neighborhood and see what was up. I captured a few valiant snowpeople before they melted and when I got back, the walkway and driveway were both entirely clear of snow, though the snow on the grass lawn lingered for a few days more until the sun finally got strong enough to melt it all.
As I walked through the neighborhood, one side of the street was almost always completely sunny with almost no evidence of snow left, while the other side was shady and very winter wonderland-ish.
Well, Thomas Broussard, I hope that answers your question “during the weather” last month.
And, to the rest of you, this is your invitation to AMA. I don’t promise I’ll answer, but you’ll never know if you don’t ask. Maybe your question will inspire a whole post just like this one!
If you need inspiration for your question(s):
What kind of topics would you like to see me writing about? I have written/currently write about books, my journey as an entrepreneur, chronic illness and occasionally politics.