Snow on April second

In Polish communities, there's a tradition that the day after Easter is "dunking day," also known as "dyngus day." The goal of the day is to dump water onto some unsuspecting person's head. For...reasons. It's never been a thing for my family or anyone I know. Don't ask me.

The date of Easter is determined by the first Sunday following the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox. It can be as early as March 22, and as late as April 25. Getting water dumped on your head probably isn't so bad when Easter falls late in the season, in the warmer part of the Spring, at least when compared to the colder, earlier part of the season.

I stayed up wayyy too late last night watching the live performance of "Jesus Christ Superstar" on NBC. I enjoyed it tremendously. John Legend was quietly understated as a tired Jesus nearing the end of his ministry; Alice Cooper was subdued as a restrained and menacing Herod; but for me, Ben Daniels (Blue Leader from Rogue One) gave the most striking performance as Pontius Pilate, singing and acting circles around everyone else on stage. The show ended around 10:30 PM, and I didn't fall asleep until about 11:00 PM, giving me a solid four hours to sleep before my alarm went off at 3:00 AM.

I let myself stay in bed until 3:30 AM. Then I dragged myself out of bed, made my ablutions, fed the cats. Opened the front door to retrieve the newspaper.

The sky was celebrating dunking day for us.

We were warned that there might be snow. It would be heavier south of us, and west of us. We could expect an inch or so before it stopped around 9:00 AM. But what was coming down was fast and hard and wet-looking. The roads and sidewalks were clear, melting the snow as fast as it came down, but already close to an inch had accumulated on the lawn and the shrubs.

The next time I looked out, the snow had begun to accumulate on the streets and sidewalks.

I ate my breakfast, assembled my lunch, hurried into the shower. Got dressed, suited up for the weather, left the house ten minutes before I usually begin my twelve-minute commute.

The car was covered with nearly five inches of wet snow. I cleaned it as quickly as I could, but lost several minutes of travel buffer.

The roads were unplowed. Who would have thought we would need to have snowplows running at 5:40 AM on April 2nd, the day after Easter? Cars cane to a complete stop at the top of the hill on Kosciuszko Street that leads out of town, then slowly inched their way down. No need to crash into one of Nanticoke's two traffic lights.

The highway was even worse. With an SUV on my tail, I turned onto Route 29 to head to work. I needed to drive in the tracks of the cars in front of me, like slot racers following each other. Then the hypnosnow began, falling fast and hard enough that using high beams created a virtual whiteout.

I made it to work, almost on time. I was able to make up the missed time at the end of the day.

By then, the thick, wet snow had almost all melted away.