As you may be aware, SnowWatch `09 is a big deal for parts of the MidAtlantic. Virginia specifically is losing it: they have like one snowplow for the state, and no evacuation plan, and if you drive you will die. But Philadelphia?: "oh, we'll get between 15-18 inches. Whatevs. Hot cocoa!"
I am < thrilled. Snow all kinds of monkeys with you. Your plans get defenestrated and SNOW becomes your plans. Even the threat of snow turns VA (and me) into a tizzy. I do not need "like 15-18in." of it snowing me in all stranded-like.
So, I'll admit, at first I was annoyed with my W&M/VA/DC news feed: it was blowing up about the Snowmegeddon like two days before it even happened. That is great, you guys, enjoy the snow. Throw a snowball on someone's face. Get your clothes all wet and catch pneumonic swine flu. Huzzah.
Philadelphians, on the other hand, curiously peeped once pre-monster-snow:
"I leave for a weekend in NYC in one hour. If it snows a foot like the weather reports are saying, I. AM. SCREWED. Buying snowpants on 5th Avenue?" - PZimmzPlease note: that is a travel peep. Perhaps the updater will be inconvenienced by the wretched meteorological phenomenon that is snow. I commiserate and wish him godspeed.
Let's take a look at some comparable VA updates:
"SNOW glorious SNOW!" -Lemon
"snowsnowsnow :)" -KGpersWhile adorable, those are "I'm so stoked about precipitation!" peeps. I do not understand. It is snow, it is wicked inconvenient, and it is not fun. Yours truly, The Grinch.
This morning I had a chilling realization: at least my VA homies are talking about the snow. They look forward to the requisite snowballing and the VA state of emergency. They are weather-aware.
It scares me to pieces that the Philadelphians are not. even. fazed. by the SnowPocalypse. As if ... as if this isn't a SnowPocalypse. AT. ALL.
Maybe this is normal snow expectation. Like SnowPocalypse `09 is just the tip of the iceberg. THE RAPIDLY MELTING ICEBERG.
I went grocery shopping yesterday just to have food in the cabinets in case I get snowed into my apartment complex for the next three days, as a VAian does when TWO FEET OF SNOW is forecast. Sitting there in the parking lot in 23 degree weather, shivering in my birthday coat, gloves, and boots waiting for Christine to warm up, I witnessed the single most terrifying thing I have ever seen in my life.
My apartment complex has its own snowplow. The snow[plow]man was test-driving it around and around and around and around my truck. And me, sitting in it, looking on in frozen horror.
It is going to be a long. long. winter.
*That might be true
They don't have a picture of the Philly area but here's a NASA picture from space of the blanketing of the landscape by the snowstorm:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/east-coast-blizzard-from-space?npu=1&mbid=yhp
That's so cool! I sent this to my Mom and sister: you can see how Virginia Beach didn't get so much as a flake, poor things, even as the rest of the area is pummeled.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Kara and I enjoyed the fact that we were quoted as the snow optimists! I still maintain that snow is wondrous and magical, no matter how long I was stranded at home :) :)
ReplyDeleteHAVE A FABULOUS BREAK ANNIEALLEN!
<3 Lemon