Snow Day!

Today is day 3.5 of snowday goodness this year. Ah, the dreams of me as a child are still just as true now that I'm an adult. The idea of the snowday has lost none of its appeal. And in many ways I feel again like a child, the only difference is that instead of waking up early and checking the television, I'm able to check online, thankfully the night before so I don't have to wake up.

Yesterday afternoon the second snowstorm in a week hit the East Coast. I do not envision this one to be quite as big as the one that hit us last week Friday/Saturday, but by the standards of DC, it will still be big. The key is that it will be another foot, to two feet of snow on top of the nearly three feet we already have. I am of course ecstatic.

So, one may wonder how do these snow storms compare to those is Michigan? I would say the one that hit last weekend would be considered a formidable storm no matter where you lived. The one today, probably more typical. Still lots of snow, but more along the lines of what you would expect should I be living in Michigan. That being said I do not believe the importance is in how fast it is falling, so much as in how fast it is disappearing. In other words, snow removal here is slooooow. On Saturday, only the main roads were really drivable. All the side roads were pretty bad I'd say. By Sunday, they were able to hit most of the main roads. Keep in mind though, there are no rules here to keep cars off the side of the roads during winter for the plows. It is actually quite amusing to see what happens when you combine the two. Its like snow channels where there were cars parked along the side of the road. But I digress. By Monday most of the roads around DC were starting to look pretty good. But the metro was still down. On Tuesday, they finally got around to clearing out the parking lot where my car was parked. Literally my car was snowed in up until yesterday. And even then I was afraid to drive it out (after I had the joy of digging it out) because of fear of losing my parking spot. I suppose I need a chair to put in it while I am gone.

I was actually surprised they still had the government closed on Tuesday. As most of the roads by that time (count them 4 days after the storm hit) were cleared. But I think the metro system was still down, and that being the lifeline of DC, the Government was closed. So now it is Wednesday, it is still snowing this morning, and is projected to do so for much of the day. There is actually quite a nice fall going outside my window at this very moment. This hints to me that tomorrow will once again be another snowday. So will I go to work on Friday? Ah yes, this is the question... will I get a full week off of work? Keeping in mind that Monday is a holiday..... Of course the downside is that I'm stuck in my apartment all week lol.

There is one thing I was not prepared for however. The running on the grocery stores. Last week Wednesday I did my normal grocery shopping. So I was more or less stocked for the weekend snow storm. The grocery store itself was closed on Saturday. But after work on Friday I stopped by to pick up some laundry detergent. And wow, people had made a run on the place lol. I've never seen anything quite like it before. The store was out of milk, eggs, and pretty much all of its frozen foods. There was a traffic jam to the grocery store, I'm told, later that day. And even when I went on Monday morning, the place still hadn't been able to restock fully. I suppose this is a good time to be a grocery store.

Anyways, I fear I have rambled on way past my normal. I must get back to my day of doing nothing, and yet getting paid. Ah yes, that has a very nice ring to it. But fear not, the patent office is fee funded, so none of your tax dollars are supporting me. However, I would like to take this time to speak for the rest of the government when I say Thank you for this paid week of vacation.