Deb: Everywhere you looked, every news channel, every paper, every stranger in line at the grocery store, everyone was talking about it. It was going to be the STORM OF THE CENTURY and it was coming to our city!
Thirty centimeters of snow! That was guaranteed. Beyond that they weren’t sure, but they knew it was going to be bad. Stay off the roads! Close the schools! Batten down the hatches! So we did. People by the thousands cancelled appointments, rescheduled meetings and stocked up on food for the one day shut-in.
And then it came. Started easy, with light flurries and then ... well, then it kinda stayed easy with a few more flurries ... AND THEN ... well, I guess it kinda blew around a bit like light flurries are wont to do. And then it kinda piled on top of each other till we were held captive by six full inches of snow.
I am sure the Mayor had the army on Stand By, but instead I have no doubt that the army all went for dinner and drinks. And it would have been easy to get to any restaurant or bar, given that there was no one on the roads. We were all holed up protecting ourselves and our loved ones against the STORM OF THE CENTURY ... Century ... century.
Even the Salvation Army would have been overkill for this tiny little storm.
Honest to Pete, we had more snow than this before Christmas and no one batted an eye. But dutifully prepared, my husband and I had the shovel ready by the back door to dig a path for the dogs to get to the back of our yard to do their business, lest they be swallowed up by this tsunami of snow, this looming wall of powder.
When we opened the door the morning after the STORM OF THE CENTURY, the dogs looked at us as if to say, “Yeah, don’t bother with the shovel. We got this one.” And they ambled down the stairs with the ease of a spring day. They knew. They were embarrassed for the weather too.
And yet, it’s not the weather’s fault. It’s just doing what weather does. It’s just being weather––raining here, storming there. It’s the messengers of the weather that are responsible for this debacle. The media weather porn distributers. STOP IT. BE RESPONSIBLE. STOP IT.
I’m embarrassed for us now. Sucked in again. Oh well ... sure is pretty though.
Barbara: Sigh. I wanted a true snow day, a true “we’re stuck together” excuse for eating chips and playing games and sitting around the fire when otherwise we would be working or schooling. Sadly, I even stocked up on provisions the day before––including those supposed-to-be-guilt-free-chips-because-it’s-a-snow-day, and prepared myself for snowful abandon. Except one daughter still had school and the other had “too much homework” (blah blah blah) and my husband decided to take on those “storm ravaged roads” to find only mildly slushy coverage and no one in the way. So I ate those chips, yes I did, by MYSELF, while skyping a work day with Deb (love that skype––don’t get me started). And it’s so not a “snow day” if you’re still working, even with a beloved, even with a bowl of chips.
Storm of the century? I hardly noticed it for all the disappointed whining (mine).
We were suppost to have a couple of snow storms this month where I live and had ended up with maby an inch of snow. Around here people freck if you say the word SNOW. They act like it's the worst thing in the world. Me I like it but that's just me. I hear people talking about it all the time at work. The snow,the snow it's going to be bad. I always tell them,it's only bad if you make it bad.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that always gets me before it snows is people asking me "So,is it going to snow tonight" I always tell them I have no Idea,I am not a weather women,how the heck would I know.
Somehow I knew, even as the devastating images of the havoc in the Midwest were filling the screens, that we wouldn't get hit...We had the exact same experience here in the Buffalo area...much ado about relatively little.
ReplyDeleteWatching the news the evening of was the best. Faced with the total non-event the "Storm of the Century" had turned out to be, the meteorologist, who the night before had been waving his little pointer alarmingly while telling us to stock up on essentials, was stammering for a good ten minutes as to why he had told us what he had and the climatological reasons why none of it had come to pass. It was a metaphorical CYA umbrella if 'ere there were one! Meanwhile, the whole region sat at home with little more to occupy them than thougtful consideration of the Armageddon that wasn't!
I seem to live in a bubble where we get 22 inches of snow when no one else gets anything and we get nothing when the rest of the continent is under a foot or three. Oh well, thanks for the break this time, Mother Nature.
ReplyDeleteerica
Glorious snow. When you work at home, it's the greatest thing in the world.
ReplyDeleteHere in LA they do the same thing for rain. They call it STORM WATCH 2011. A joke I tell you and I get so pissed because they are always wrong and then when they don't say a thing it rains for days. I look outside each morning and dress to what I see.
ReplyDeleteWell, above all else, I'm glad y'all and y'all's loved ones were not in danger.
ReplyDeleteThe NWS office down in Memphis and the regional media had cried wolf so often about incoming winter weather and the-closest-thing-we'll-get-to-hurricanes-in-Arkansas summer storms that it had become a snarky, cynical joke around here whenever dire predictions were issued. Folks didn't much take them seriously because they were wrong such a high percentage of the time.
Then came the Ice Storm of 2009. It was worse than anyone could've imagined. The destruction was, literally, of a you-have-to-see-it-to-believe level. A lot of folks were caught off guard by not just the severity of the storm but also the extreme duration of the after effects. People had grabbed toilet paper, bread, and milk for a couple of days of snow and ice. They hadn't planned on a month long ordeal.
People take the weather predictions a lot more seriously since that storm. Two years have passed (last week was the anniversary http://winterlightblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/2-years-ago-this-week.html , and it hasn't fully worn off, yet. I wonder, though, how many more instances of getting it wrong, more and more crying wolf, it will take before folks go back to complacency and unpreparedness.
Keep posting those backyard and around-the-house photos. I love those. And it IS all about ME, right???
ReplyDeleteThe pics look so charming. I like looking at pictures of snow, but I love my California sunshine, with our occasional "DRIZZLE WATCH 2011". We do get those pesky wildfires though.
ReplyDeleteSnow day sounds fun- why don't you all have one anyway?
What an absolutely fabulous excuse to eat chips. ❤
ReplyDeleteHi darling followers. I have not had a chance to respond as I was away for the weekend, took my new ipad and could not get service. Plus the weekend was full full full of friendship and healing. Thanks as always for all your wonderful, fun, insightful comments. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
ReplyDelete6 inches of snow!
ReplyDeleteWell that is 6 inches more than I have ever seen.
But isn't it crazy how people overreact at times.
Lol, I too am SICK OF THE DISAPPOINTMENT when the weather forecast of huge storms heading our way turn out to be short showers. We have had three huge snowstorms forecast this year—and nada...
ReplyDeleteBut then, five or so years ago, we had a doozie of a windstorm that decimated Stanley Park, ripped down huge trees that had stood for centuries, and blew out windows. That of course was not forecast as anything more than "heavy winds."