snowmageddon 2010: are we having fun yet?

my sincerest apologies, dear friends, for the lack of posting of late. as you might be aware it has been a little snowy here south of the mason dixon line. in summary, it has been snowing more or less non-stop since friday night. i have not been to work since friday at 2p.m., and have not left the house at all for the past 24 hours or so. i haven't showered before noon since last week.

so, quite frankly, there has just not been that much to write about.

but, i will do my best.

ahem.

as with most things that end in tragedy, it all started with fun and games.

(not a bad opening line, eh?)

around wednesday last week people started freaking out about a big storm that was predicted for the weekend. around these parts a "big storm" could be a few flakes that don't even stick, so my hardened western constitution and i were not too worried.

but then lines at the grocery started stretching from the front all the way to the back and around the sides and suddenly you couldn't find milk or frozen pizza anywhere.

and then it started to snow.

and snow.

and snow.

being alone at the bennett homestead (bob and joyce were back in sunny utah), i recruited a brave band to come weather the storm with me. everyone made it over friday evening before the worst of it began and we made food and decorated cookies and watched "paper heart" (which is not as awesome a movie as you hope it will be) and drank hot chocolate and laughed so hard i got a headache.

we also shoveled the driveway.

four times.

when we woke up saturday morning it was still coming down.

so we made breakfast and then the emily h., todd, audrey and kelly set out toward home on foot as the trains had long stopped running.

i worried the journey would be so arduous they would just give up and curl up in a snow drift and die, but they made it back without incident.

lauren and i spent the afternoon sledding down the front stairs and making a snowman. we named him claude. appropos, no?

then we shoveled the driveway.

again.

and it was still coming down.

and right around then it sort of stopped being fun.

lauren headed home saturday evening, whereupon jaron and i spent the rest of the night watching all three jason bourne movies in a row and eating an entire package of oreos for dinner.

by sunday morning the snow had stopped, the sun had reappeared and, after two hours of chipping away at the massive pile of icy snow left at the bottom of the driveway by the plow, i managed to get my car out to take jaron home.

(sidenote: there have been several times since i moved here that i have thought, "i should trade in my suv for a small, zippy city car." i no longer think this.)

the end-of-storm euphoria was shortlived, however, as they were already predicting another storm to hit tuesday.

i thought it was not possible.

i was wrong.

luckily, i got out tuesday morning before the next wave of winter hit to stock up on fabric for sewing projects, cheeze-its, gummi bears and some brief human interaction (thanks, emily h!) before the snow came again tuesday evening, along with 60mph winds.

and the rest, as they say, is history.

i think the total snowfall is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 inches and even though nothing much is falling out of the sky anymore it will take days, at least, to dig the city out.

i'm going on four days of no work with the office closed again tomorrow, and i wouldn't be at all surprised if it were closed friday as well, which basically means i have no hope of ever getting back on the awesome (and on-time) schedule i had finally managed to commit to. it also probably means that i will not remember the code to get into the bathroom.

and so i will say what i never thought i would. which is this: i miss utah winters.

how can this be?

the good news is that i am definitely getting my money's worth out of my netflix account, i've had plenty of time to read a fabulous book about australia, and after two hours spent trying to figuring out how to wind my bobbin, i am on a total roll with the new sewing machine. (goal #10, consider yourself accomplished!)

and i have not lost power or gotten stranded by the side of the road or run out of anything essential, which makes me a lot luckier than a lot of people around here.

but not as lucky as everyone living in san diego. which is where i am seriously considering spending next winter.