13 March 2009

if it's spring...eta

Edited to answer below

..then these sights should soon be a thing of the past. The first picture is right beside my front door. (Note: The fact that I have my own door was important enough to be mentioned in my Russian hs. Rightly so! It's my favorite feature of my current flat.) The second is on the street outside my building.



The red tape is found all over the city right now. It warns you that the storm pipes are melting and may come crashing down. There is another one right outside my bedroom window. The grand whooshing it makes give me a thrill reminiscent of the one brought on by thunder. I love thunder. It reminds me how mighty God is. And melting drainpipes remind me of thunder which, in turn, reminds me of the awesome power of God. Digression. Sorry.

The warning tape also marks melting icicles, snow being shoveled off roofs and generally any falling object that may impale you.

Note there is no red tape on the broken drainpipe. I guess it whooshed too powerfully.

"Spring" is actually a misnomer, Debbie. The season that follows winter is "Mud Season". The city will be filled with and mired in deep, gooey, sticky, smelly mud. Mud Season is followed by "Tourist Season" in St. P which overlaps with "Sleep Deprivation Season" (like basketball and football seasons overlap) in which all American ex-pats walk around like zombies because it never gets DARK here. Good times ahead...

10 comments:

Heidi said...

Can't wait for spring!
What's up with the red tape outside "my own" front door?

Debbie said...

Do you get the mud like here in Siberia or does the snow disappear more cleanly??

Tina in CT said...

Do you get all the pollen from all the female trees like in Moscow in the spring? My daughter did a blog about it last spring. I'd go nuts with my allergies.

Hope you have a pair of rubber rain boots for mud season.

Tami said...

Aaaahhh..the many seasons of St. Pete's! We spent 'hotter-than-you-know-what' season in Moscow nine and six years ago. I would really like to see it at a time when my insides weren't boiling! :)
BTW - I have a little something for you on my blog. Come by sometime and pick it up. ;>)

Andrea said...

Haha I like the sound of the special seasons . . . not so much that I actually want to experience all of them, of course, but I read and observe with polite fascination ;)

We could use some red tape of that type around here too, I think. I currently have a once-white dog who looks like his belly was dipped in chocolate; we tried a muddy, icy, slippery late-winter walk, and it just . . . it got messy.

Spring will be welcome, summer will be welcome-er! Maybe you and d2b will be able to enjoy a bit of a North American summer before it goes back to being winter again.

Unknown said...

Mud season - that is so funny! I needed a good giggle today...thanks, Kate!

Debbie said...

Thanks, Kate, for the clarifications. I can visualize it ALL! (other than the sleep depravation season which I won't be able to experience personally but had an ex-pat living here in IRK describe to me in similiar details!)

J. said...

I spent three March weeks in Siberia a few years ago and I dubbed it "March Mudness"!

The Accidental Mommy said...

Wow, red tape to warn you from brain injury! I hope it works!
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I like your answer 'they fight in the back of the car', lol. True, for sure.

Jenni said...

Ahhh... glorious Spring! Hope you've got some good boots for Mud season!