snow ... ouch?

I looked outside right now. And what do I see, a dramatic black sky and Colorado Plaza lit up as if it's the last refuge on earth.
















Then, then, thirty seconds later, it hailed! One little kid said "hey, it's snowing ... ouch."

Long ago, when I was a wee lass, I had heard strange noises outside. I looked out the door, and saw it was hailing. I stuck out my hand from behind the porch. My hand was stinging, but I kept my arms outstretched, clutching the little clumps of ice as if they had fallen just for me.

I was maybe 14 when I first saw snow falling, and at that time I was in the car with my mom who was freaking out. I didn't actually stand in falling snow until my sophmore year of college when me and some friends went to tahoe for the weekend. One of the friends was a Floridian. And I thought I was a deprived person from having lived in the desert my whole life, but that friend had not only never seen falling snow, but was horrified by it. And I don't mean just "oh, how weird," she was actually petrified by the snow, and wanted to get indoors as soon as possible.