My Kind Of Winter

You shall hear no complaints from me about the abnormally mild winter we are having here in MN. I love it. I especially like it because that is what I will have to look forward to in TN next winter.

But for all you Minnesotans who have forgotten what snow looks like, a blast from the past: here is how it looked in the winter of 2000-2001 when I was a new homeowner.



We had about 20 inches or so in a short period of time that I can recall. I remember panicking because I thought the snow was going to pile way over my back fence and I had no clue where it would all go.

Nonetheless, preparations for this year's St. Paul Winter Carnival have begun. Rumors of plastic being used in place of ice for sculptures have been squelched. One of the carnival traditions is the Torchlight Parade. Here's a story about that from the early 90's. My friend, the "angel" who helped me settle here, invited me to come hang with her and her gorgeous daughter who won one of her many youth beauty titles, enabling her to ride in the Torchlight Parade. So we're hanging out by the US Bank building, waiting for them to load the kids on the KARE-11 bus on which they will ride in the parade. Before we know it, they were ushering both kids and us adults on the bus. Well, okay. I figure, I'll sit in the back of the bus and be stupid and wave to everyone. No one would see me anyway.

Wrong.

The parade was televised live that year, and I set up my VCR to tape it. After the parade, my friend, her daughter and a few kids came up to my apartment to watch the tape. Well, when the KARE-11 bus came into view, guess whose waving mug came on camera along with the kids?

So, if anyone should ask--let's say I was Miss Transplant Minnesota for that year.