Snow Day

We (finally?) had our first big storm of the season last night. (I know that places further up the coast, e.g., NYC and Boston, have been getting hammered more frequently than us down here in the mid-Atlantic.) We got somewhere between 7 and 9 inches. (Those were the two official readings we found for Baltimore City.) Because of this ambiguity, a friend of mine and I called a draw on the wager we had of each predicting how much snow we'd get, so now neither of us has to talk to our gym boyfriends. Ha! (And whew.)

Anyway, we had a snow day today, which for a hard working post doc like me means that I can work at home instead of in my office.* Of course, I could have walked to my office, I just didn't really feel like tromping through all the wet snow.

I decided to go to the gym for a snow day work out in the evening. (There's something nice about going to the gym after being inside all day.) Because it was cold, I was feeling lazy, and I wanted to go to the grocery store after, I decided to drive. I went out to my car (which I haven't seen since Monday, since I've been walking to work this week), and got to work at clearing the snow off it. Once I spent 10 or 15 minutes getting it all cleaned off, I realized....oops, I can't actually get my car out because I don't have a shovel, so I can't move all the snow that is AROUND it.** And then I thought of how complicated parking might be upon my return. (The joys of winter street parking.***)

So....I walked to the gym instead.

I had a good workout. I did the elliptical and read The Hunger Games. (First book; I'm like seven chapters in, and enjoying it a lot.) For the last 10 minutes, I watched the Colbert Report. He was talking about the State of the Union address, and talking about the part when Obama said how we were the country that put cars in driveways and computers in offices. Colbert then added, "We then put computers in cars [picture of a GPS], and cars in offices [picture of a car smashing through a storefront]." I laughed out loud, right there on the elliptical.

On the way home I stopped at the small market across the street from my apartment to at least buy milk. I ended up also buying a chicken Caesar salad from the deli there. By that point I was starving, and it was exactly what I wanted. (Even though I didn't know it before. :) ) Oh, and I bought this little number too.


Why yes, that is chocolate pudding, oreo cookies, and whipped cream. I saw it and thought chocolate pudding sounded great. Since I already have whipped cream at home, I tried to buy a box of pudding mix, so I could make some. All the chocolate pudding was gone. What is it about snow days that makes people want to eat chocolate pudding? So I bought this thing, and it was so satisfying.

While I ate my salad and pudding treat, I listened to Amy Mann's Lost in Space album. I recently received it as a gift, and I listened to it for like three weeks straight after Christmas. Perfect chill music, for a perfectly chill evening.

Okay, I better go to bed. Thus ends one of my most random blog posts ever.

(Oh, and Mom, I promise I'll get a shovel for my car soon.)


* Technically I can work at home anytime I want, but there's something extra enticing and justifying about it when there's a bunch of snow outside.
** My mom will hate knowing this. She's always told me to have a shovel in my trunk during the winter, just in case. She also made me take an ice scraper when I moved to Austin, which, remarkably, I actually used a couple times. My mom has excellent foresight.
*** For more about that, read http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2010/02/21/can-you-dig-it/.

You know what we need? More snow.

No, this is not a screenshot from The Onion. Actually, it's the front page of msnbc.com tonight. I saw it, and I laughed. Sometimes I forget that the rest of the world isn't snowed in too. With the next big storm having rolled in this afternoon (it's snowing as we speak), work and school canceled again for tomorrow, we're heading into snow day #6. This storm is forecasted for 10-20 more inches on top of the two feet we already have.

But I'm grateful that:

(1) We still have power/internet. (*knock on wood*)
(2) My roommates are fun. (Let's be honest, we've been having a blast. And don't want to kill each other. Which is good.)
(3) I have good food to eat, and what seems like an endless supply of hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies baked by roommates.
(4) The gym remains open, despite Johns Hopkins campus being closed. And that it only takes 20 minutes to walk there. Good workouts are great to prevent complete cabin fever.
(5) I brought my work laptop home, so I'm still productive. Well, kind of....
(6) We as roommates helped each other clean the snow off each others' cars tonight....you know, so no one's roofs or windshields collapse from the weight of all the snow. (Can that happen?)

To be honest, this is the type of weather I expected when I moved to Albany a year ago, not Baltimore. Remember when I was (somewhat unhappily) getting ready to move to Albany, imagining what it would be like, and on this very blog, I wrote this:

"I sometimes envision myself being snowed in for days at a time, wrapped up in blankets, drinking hot chocolate, and busily writing my dissertation on my laptop."

Well, I don't have a dissertation to write anymore (THANK GOODNESS); nor am I wrapped up in blankets, since our heat still works (THANK GOODNESS); but I am almost always in my pajamas, working (or not working) on my laptop, and drinking hot chocolate. (Thank you Cocomotion. Love you!) And of course we've got the part about being snowed in for days at a time down.

I'll be glad when it stops snowing.

But hey. Life goes on. Turns out.

Snowmageddon

It came. And it packed a punch. Just like they promised.

They call it the Great Blizzard of 2010, or just "Snowmageddon." (Personally, I also liked the Snowpocalypse.)

We're officially having the second snowiest winter in the history of Baltimore. But don't worry, the relatively small storm we're having on Tuesday will undoubtedly give us that little push (we only need 0.4 inches more!) to put us at number 1. This weekend's storm was (when last I checked....I think people are still arguing official numbers) the #2 snowiest storm in Baltimore ever. Remember that storm we had in December? Yeah, it was #8 on that list. Pfft! And we thought it was so bad.

I think I've seen more snow in the last two months in Baltimore than I did in the three months of winter I saw in Albany. Am I the only one that finds that weird?

It started snowing late morning on Friday. Friday wasn't bad though. The snow was only moderate, and it wasn't even really sticking yet. It was light enough to hurry to pick up a few last minute things for the snowed in weekend.

Friday night it started getting heavier. Overnight Friday to Saturday, as predicted, was the worst. When I woke up this morning (Saturday), there was nearly a foot and a half outside.

We woke up Saturday morning to this:


But don't worry. Soon we were eating this:



And I spent most of the day being incredibly lazy. We had a late night the night before, so I was still tired. As I was taking a nap on the couch, I heard someone throwing snowballs at my window. Turns out it was some friends of ours, who were walking around and stopped by our house to say hi. How nice! (Even though almost all of us were still in our pajamas.) We invited them in for hot chocolate and cookies.


They took this picture as they left. This is me and my four roommates in our living room windows. (Sorry the glare is bad. I'm on the far left.)

Here is me and all my roommates on this great snow day!

Admittedly, I was really lazy about taking measurements this time around. I know, I know. I was just...well, feeling lazy, and not wanting to be cold. (I'm kind of tired of being cold, and tired of the snow.) I did take some though, after it had stopped snowing, sometime around 6:00 or 7:00pm. I used the same 24-inch ruler that I did last time. This picture (with our house in the background) about sums up today.

Oh, wait. This one by my car is even better.

Speaking of my car, doesn't it look sad? Oh wait, you can't see it. Well, trust me, Filbert is ready for spring too.


Proof that Baltimore DOES have snow plows.

Among the best moments of the day was when Ashlee decided that she absolutely HAD to get the Mountain Dew that was in the backseat of her car. We documented this undertaking.





Victory!

We made homemade pizza for dinner, but....I didn't take any pictures. But it still tasted good.

They've canceled church tomorrow, so we get another snow day. I'd rather have spring though.