Snowpocalypse

Four cars covered in snow.   
Who is counting inches?  However they are forecasting another 10" to top it off!
David is baking French bread and making a soup and I am painting watercolor
still life arrangements of fruits and vegetables.  It is cozy and we are hoping that
we will keep our power.

As Bad As It Gets

Chris Strong from the National Weather Service issued the following notice to the Washington, DC media earlier today:
If you would, please ensure these points get some airtime. Tonight into Saturday morning will be about as dangerous as winter weather can get around here. Thank you.


The forecast suggests that the snow will continue throughout Saturday.  Still no one really knows what we are in for, so what do we do to get ready for a blizzard?  


Last night we went out to dinner and the theater.
Eating a nice steak and drinking a bottle of wine in a convivial setting followed by a fantastic performance gave us an opportunity to stimulate our senses prior to enforced hibernation.






The snow started around noon and it is the wet sloppy kind.  Light at first, it started to collect nicely in the late afternoon.  The kids in the neighborhood have already attacked the hill next door to us because they know that by tomorrow it will be snow fort building time.

The grocery stores are empty.  The liquor stores, which are operated by our county were closed at noon.  Everything is called off including my meetings at the college tomorrow.


The Netflix envelope arrived today (Away We Go), and books on tape is safely here from the library.  Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native,
beautifully read by actor Alan Rickman.  Click here to hear his rich voice reading a section of the introduction.  Nothing like a rich book about doubtful love.







Have you ever heard of "Flat Stanley"?  He is a new character to me that was sent from my friends in Alaska where he was "visiting".  Flat Stanley began his life in the second grade classroom of an elementary school in Hudson, MA.  The students color them and then send them on a journey around the world, near and far, hoping that he will return by the end of term in June.


David took him to the zoo yesterday so that he could be photographed with some of the critters in the Small Mammal House.  Here Stanley gets to watch a porcupine have a snack. He also met a naked mole rat pictured below. 

In Memoriam

 

My Mother and I 

"In life there is always a memory, that no matter how minimal and fleeting, turns you into another human being."
Tomas Eloy Martinez 1935 -2010, "The Flight of the Queen"