Big Thaw

Weeks of ice and inches of snow are now a bad memory. Mostly. Seeing these photographs again is a little chilling. But they tell a story of some of the good that came out of those dark days. The alley in the photo below was dug out entirely by hand(and shovel) by a group of our neighbors .


This one just made me laugh in a bratty, rebellious teenager kind of way. I guess it wouldn't be so funny if something was on fire.


I don't know what kind of tattoo artists they are, but these guys make public art.


The image below brings back some of the horror. It was hard to get around, for everyone. Crossing the street was a game. In the thick of it, a bus driver let her guard down and cried as I was waiting to de-bus. She was anxious about her and her passengers' safety, and she was tired from working overtime and the stress of worrying.



When we began to see slips of pavement below the white stuff, we knew the end was near. And the beginning of some serious ugliness. Piles of gritty snow, dank puddles, the usual gray exteriors of February in Pittsburgh. Oh, and everything that had been trapped beneath the winter wonderland. I waited at this bus shelter on Highland Avenue for a few minutes and couln't finish cataloging all of the trash there before the bus came.


See below for the kind of white on the ground that I can get behind. We have been treated to some unseasonally warm weather over the last week, forcing these lovelies out of hiding. We believe we deserve it.