Snow, Snow, Snow!

Everything is shut down, the roads are all but impassable, there are wind gusts and some drifting of the perfect white snow falling.

We are not even in the thick of it yet...

It began snowing last night around 2000, but they were little tiny glittering particles, not the kind of snow that would pile up into staggering amounts of snow. I found myself thinking that once again they've botched the job and we were going to get nothing again, but at some point during the night the quality of the snow changed.

And then the phone rang... at 0530, an hour I never want to hear the phone ring. Fortunately I'd gotten the heads up that I'd be getting the wee-hours call should the snow get out of hand. So I didn't answer the phone with, "Who's dead?"

Instead, I groaned, "It's still dark outside."

At least the voice on the other end laughed. Good man, good sense of humour, definitely a great combination. Always need to laugh at these things. We both had a good laugh, actually.

Surprisingly, Luis actually stayed home. So not like him. Normally, he would go to work no matter what. It's good to see that there is - somewhere - a little voice in his head that said, "This would be a bad idea."

I would have said that if there were only 6" of snow. When the snow approaches double digits I am not going anywhere. At all. Period, end of sentence.

But it looks gorgeous. This is what winter should look like. Not the dull greys and browns of a dormant landscape, but the brilliant white of the snow swirling. If nothing else, everything looks so lovely, so fantasy-like. Sure, there will be a lot of clean up to do, but not for nothing, we live in NEW JERSEY. If you were thinking this area doesn't get snow, you were really, really misguided.

A friend of mine said to me yesterday, that snow storms should be all or nothing. Either nothing falls at all, or you get the whole nine yards. I had to agree with that. It should be all or nothing. Today... we are getting ALL of it! Up to 19 inches in Parsippany, 12" in Springfield, 15" in Wayne, 12" in Elizabeth, 14" in NYC... Let me see if my cousin is getting any snow - she's in Adelphi, MD and had gotten over 2 feet from the last storm (you remember, the storm where we got ZIP!)... another 7" for her. Good gods.

Well, we did not get that kind of snow, but hey, we are finally getting some. Maybe the fact that when I was a kid I would pray (as much as I can be said to pray) madly for snow to close school. I hated school. But back in those days the school systems were complete hardasses about closing the schools. They would not do it. I'd be promising the weather gods any thing I could think of, they would dump 8 inches of snow and the &#$*$*#!! school would not close. Now we live in a whimpy society that allows the schools to close if they see three flakes. Where was that when I was a kid?!

Well, I will take it. This is the first time this year I've been home without being sick! That alone makes it well worth it!