Not for the faint of heart

Ah, yes, we had the big snow yesterday. And for all of the talk about a "storm", it was the most tranquil storm I've ever been in. The snow just drifted down, dense and thick mind you, but it just drifted gently all day. Everything was quiet and so beautiful. A soft white blanket covered everything.
This morning... well, let's just say I finally found one disadvantage to having a property with a double lot - double the amount of sidewalk to shovel. But it wasn't really that bad. The snow was still very powdery so it was easy to shovel. I still got quite an abdominal work out. My car is buried under piles of snow made worse by the snow plows. For those of you not living in a snowy climate - the snow plows are the garbage trucks with an attachment. They didn't bother to plow my street until early this morning. I decided to brush all the snow off my car before it has a chance to melt and freeze and melt and freeze. That's when it's a real pain in the patuchus to clean.
But what I really wanted to blog about was a cat's amazing capacity to find the warmest spot in the house. Jacques is like a divining rod in that respect. Usually it's my lap, unless I'm busy, in which case it is the new bathroom floor (if I'm on the second floor), or right next to the space heater on the first floor. And I mean, right next to the heater - as close as he can get.
And since he is the divining rod for warmth - he was not interested in braving the snow. Oh sure he went with me to peek out of the 3rd floor windows:

The snow drifts have covered the bottom quarter of the window.
But when I went downstairs and he thought he might be interested in going outside, he was thwarted by a bank of snow at the back door. I think he was quite astounded. He actually just sat down and stared at it. Then he looked up at me as if to ask - what is all this? Since I was not going to stand there all morning with the door ajar while he figured it out, I grabbed him, closed the back door and tried the front door. We didn't get much further.
Yes, he braved the edge of the porch, (see first image) and then went around to the side of the porch, shaking snow off his feet as he stalked along.
He came back around fairly quickly, this really was not his cup of tea and for the first time since he's been able to go outside, he decided he was better off inside. Later when I went out to shovel snow, I gave him the option to go out again. He just crouched in the doorway and looked at me as if to say, "You have got to be kidding!"
Right here is where he'd prefer to be, of course: