I love living in East Hampton -- or at least I did until this winter. In the 30 years since we bought our first house, there have been snowfalls, some of them major, but nothing like what's been happening here. In the past month, we've been plowed twice, and still, when we arrived on Wednesday night (after a 45-minute dig-out from our parking space in the city), we got stuck at the top of our driveway and had to call AAA the next morning. The freezing rain is worse than the snow; first it melts the surface of what's already there (the base is almost two feet thick); then it turns to slush. It's like
Groundhog Day -- nine storms in five weeks, dig out and watch the new snow obliterate your everything you've just finished clearing.
When we bought our house, we never gave a thought to the fact that our driveway was 100 feet long and at a fairly steep angle. For that past two months, that's been the central fact of our lives; all our travel decisions are based on it.
For the first time, I'm considering Plan B: quit teaching and spend the winters in a warm, sunny clime. We'll give the Northeast one more winter, but if it's anything like this one, very possibly, we're outta here.
