Surfeit -- Let It Snow? Let It No!

Dear Mother Nature, thank you for your enthusiastic response to my husband's wistful comments lo these past few years about the dearth of snow to mark the winter season, but really, enough is enough. There's a hill of snow in front of our house created from our efforts to shovel a 20-inch deep blanket off our car and driveway, and now we hear forecasts of another 5 to 10 inches that may fall in a couple of days. Thanks, dear lady, but no thanks. We are suffering a surfeit of the white stuff.

I'm afraid that the evidence outside our windows suggests you may not be familiar with the meaning of surfeit, so permit me to share with you this definition from the venerable OED: "1. Excess, superfluity; excessive amount or supply of something." The tome also offers: "An excessive indulgence," and "Disgust arising from excess; nausea, satiety." Not to seem too ungrateful, but it's that last definition that really resonates at the moment.

Oh, sure, come the dog days of August, as I stand in a sweltering Metro train car with beads of sweat slithering down the backs of my legs, I'll think back longingly to plowing through snow up to my kneecaps this winter. But, dear Mother Nature, we're surfeited. Satiated. Done with all that. So that next round of snow on Tuesday? I hear Vancouver is experiencing a deficiency.