Monday, December 13, 2010

Snow Day Narrative

We had a very fun impromptu snow day on Sunday.

It wasn't the snow that was imprompu, it was what we did with the day.  It came as no surprise that it snowed.  It snows a lot here.  What was a surprise was that it was practically a blizzard.  I woke up that morning at 7am (thank you BabyGirl) and checked the weather online.  It predicted 30 degrees with light snow.  No big deal.  I looked out the window and it wasn't snowing.  Appeared to be a regular day.  I didn't bundle up, and i wore cute shoes.

The minute i stepped out the front door, it became clear that this was NOT "light snow".  My cute shoes were not appropriate for the conditions.  We already had 2 inches of snow on the ground.  The Professor and I had divided the labor, so my job was to go out and warm up the car while he put the BabyGirl into her fuzzy suit and strapped her in the 50 pound carseat.  As soon as i got outside i was attacked by the massive wind.  Our car was only 30 feet away, and i could barely walk to it for being blown so hard.  I couldn't breathe in the wind.  The task of "warming up the car" now included scraping the snow off.  Of course the snow that i swiped off got blown right into my face.  Ugh, it was so miserable.  No born-and-bred Southerner should experience conditions like this.  I laughed out loud at how ludicrous it was.  I tried to open the car door, but it was frozen shut.  Fortunately i yanked harder and it opened a little, but the wind was blowing against it so i had a hard time getting it out far enough to get in.

We managed to get all of us in the car and sped off to church.  I'm always running a few minutes late anyway, and we hadn't budgeted the extra time for wind and snow.  Also, the roads hadn't been cleared because it's Sunday, so driving was treacherous and we had to go slow.  We made it to church and had to do the whole routine in reverse.  The Professor dropped me off with the BabyGirl and then went to find somewhere to park.  On the drive i had told him, "you know what, we'll just pay to park at a meter today.  I think the blizzard justifies paying to park."  And then when we arrived we remembered that you can't park on that street when the snow is over 2 inches.  BOO. 

I walked into church and saw Peter and Hana!  Yes, she did email me a few weeks ago to say they would be in town, but i completely forgot until that moment.  After church we tried to figure out lunch plans with them plus Tripp and Laura.  It was pretty funny.  There were a lot of limitations to balance.  3 hungry babies, tons of snow, each of us in our own car with a carseat, Tripp had to count, and nobody delivers north of Howard.  Finally we got it to work out.  We ordered Shabuka take-out and went to Tripp\Laura's place.

The snow and wind had continued all during church, so it was truly nasty out.  Peter and Hana had planned to drive back home that afternoon, but the weather was even worse in their town, so they had to stay another night and go back the next day.  Once The Professor and I got inside Tripp\Laura's, we kinda wanted to stay until the next day too!

We ate Shabuka, which was dee-licious!  Oh so yummy.  Tripp forgot about his naan until he had finished all his food, and had nothing to dip it in.  The Professor had lots of leftover sauce that he'd eaten the chicken out of, so he offered it to Tripp, which made him so happy.  Now that we were dry, inside, and had full tummies, we were cozy and content.  The Professor and I had originally planned to get a lot of housework done that afternoon, but the chance to spend a snow day hanging out with friends was much more alluring.

The guys watched the Bears game while the women played Settlers of Catan.  You see, we used to be really big Settlers of Catan people.  We played it all the time.  Now that each of us have babies, we haven't played in forever.  It was nice to pick it up again after a long absence, but it definitely wasn't competitive like the old days.  We had to stop midway through to feed all the babies.  When we came back to it, Laura won!!!  It was her first ever Catan victory.  Congratulations Laura!

I'll have to say, this snow day was very nice.  It isn't often that life slows down for snow.  The way i was raised, the least little bit of snow brought all of civilization to a halt.  You dropped what you were doing, no matter what it was, and went sledding.  Yes you could still see the green grass thru the light dusting of snow, but you went sledding anyway.  It's not like that here.  Here you get 4 feet of snow and you still go to work.  You put on your boots and go about your business.  But today, The Professor and I threw our plans to the wind.  We stayed inside to play games and watch football.  We put relationships first.



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