Snow Day

This time I planned ahead. For three days I'd been hearing about "a storm of historic proportions" headed straight for my house. Of course, I'd heard that before only to get a dusting of snow and a bunch of uppity superintendents calling off school all over the place. So, while I had my doubts, I knew how the schools would react, and thus the daycares. I made arrangements for Daddy to watch Story so I could still go to work today.

I kept checking throughout the night, peeking through my blinds, only to see... not much. I had my alarm set for 8:00 AM. Many things get stopped by addiction and then started back up in sobriety, right where you left off. It's not just your emotional growth, as they say. There is absolutely no need for me to set my alarm for 8:00 AM. I wake up angry at the world every morning at 7:30 on the dot. I'm angry at the world because my mind does not understand that, while 7:30 AM was not a reasonable time to wake up when I was 18 and had gone to bed at 6:30 AM, it is a reasonable time to wake up when you habitually go to bed at 10:00 PM, no matter how hard you try to stay awake. Will I always be 18 in my head? Will I ever quit complaining about having to be places at 9:00 AM?

So, when Trish called at 8:00 AM I was already awake and coming out of my morning angst. I cracked the blinds and saw a pretty good blanket of snow, and more coming down. "Don't worry about coming in. The roads are too bad, we'll be closing early anyway," she reported.

"Great, I'll just roll over and go back to sleep!" I said. I rolled over, closed my eyes, then went ahead and got up and took a shower. It's been a very long time since I've had an entire day to fill with my own thoughts. First, I watched the news instead of Spongebob. I ate cereal with milk for breakfast. I made some cookies and didn't have to hide the butter from Story, who has been known to sneak an entire stick and eat it like a candy bar. I cleaned out the refrigerator. I started to take out the trash but stopped when I couldn't figure out what kind of shoes to wear through the snow. I watched the History Channel all day and learned that the Statue of Liberty and Rockefeller Center are both symbols for Lucifer. Then some Templar stuff, which I really enjoy. That's pretty much been my day.

All the while it was snowing, it didn't stop until about 6:00 PM. All told, there's probably about a foot of snow out there, a staggering amount that baffles the both the highway department and police officers. Luckily criminals are similarly dissuaded, otherwise Russellville would be Dead Wood until it warms up a little bit. Roads don't seem to be grated, I've never known them to put down salt, and I suspect that the sand I sometimes see on the roads has been purchased by the city from backyard sandbox-owners and shoveled out of the back of someones pickup truck. This is the South, we shouldn't have to prepare for feet of snow.

I know that the entire country is dealing with terrible storms of "historic" proportions. I know that Chicago had their "Storm of the Century" just a week ago. I'm not sure that this snow could be considered historic, I guess time will tell, but it has certainly paralyzed the town at least for today. It's supposed to get down to six degrees tonight, and that will definitely freeze the snow that's been packed on the roads by the brave souls who ventured out today, making it a solid sheet of ice by morning. To those of you who are reading this tonight and plan to go out tomorrow, be careful and good luck. I'm still not driving, even with my four-wheel drive and my monster truck tires because a woman disappearing off the face of the Earth only to be found months later frozen to death and buried in her car in a muddy creek somewhere might be historic. I hate driving in snow, it scares me to death.