Southern comfort...

It doesn't snow very often in my neck of the woods--about 25 miles south of Atlanta--but when it does, it's an event. The joke is that whenever the local weather guessers predict even a sprinkling of the white stuff, every grocery store across the metropolitan area is immediately innundated with people who, for some odd reason, clean out the shelves of every carton of milk, every loaf of bread, and every case of beer. Bread. Milk. Beer. This is the mantra, apparently, of Atlantans and the required provisions for dealing with an inch or two of snow. I don't know what they do in Alaska when it snows, but I think it's safe to say that folks there don't careen wildly through the streets to the nearest Piggly Wiggly and then elbow each other out of the way to fill their grocery carts with bread, milk, and beer.

Anyway, what we Atlantans generally hope for is enough snow to cancel school and close businesses but not enough to have to shovel since none of us are ever prepared for the snowfall that we do, occasionally, get. Case in point: snow started falling this morning on my way to church. Big, fat, squishy flakes that immediately melted on my windshield. By the time I left services (early, by the way), it had switched over to serious snow and was about an inch and a half deep on every surface of my car. Do I have a snow scraper? No. Do I have waterproof outer garments or shoes? No. What I did have was a single stray CD case that Benjamin had given me with a collection of classical/church music. Out came the CD. I used the case to scrape the fluffy stuff from my windshield but by the time I got a small section cleared, the CD case disintegrated and my hands were nearly blue. (No gloves, either.) I realized too late that I should have done the passenger window as well but it was too cold to get out again. SO, like a complete and total moron, I opened the window and then tried to push the remaining sheet of snow out before it quavered slightly and then collapsed in a heap on my lap. Smooth...real smooth.

That's what we southerners do in the snow--we improvise. Bryan improvised with an aluminum coke can one wintry morning a few years ago. A couple hundred dollars (and MANY months later), Jacey ended up with a new windshield--it turns out coke cans are NOT intended for snow removal but they DO leave a lovely web of deep scratches on the glass.

SO. I'll curl up with my ancestors, some good old movies, and a few cups of cocoa this afternoon and enjoy it. It's STILL coming down and they're forecasting up to four inches by the time the storm heads on up the east coast. It really won't do me any good since I'm off tomorrow anyway. But it's fun while it lasts.

The only down side of the whole thing is what it does to the early spring vegetation here. My poor, poor daffodils!!