Monday, February 8, 2010

The Weekend Report: Snowmageddon!

Well here I am, writing the Weekend Report...but my weekend is still going! Yes, that's right, thanks to Snowmageddon, work is canceled yet again and I bring you Eat, Run, Read from the comfort of my bed.And my weekend has been quite the Snowmageddon weekend. I worked from home on Friday, not because the storm was so bad that I couldn't go in, but because the storm was supposed to be so bad that I was told not to go in. No complaints here! That means I got up relatively early Friday morning "to get my run in" before the blizzard started, then waited until about 12:30 before the sky started spitting a few pathetically damp flakes of slush.

The way people behave here, you'd think that it'd never snowed before! I went to buy groceries on Friday...only to be turned away by the lines
all the way to the back of the store! That's right, both Whole Foods and Safeway had every check stand open, and a 30-minute line to buy groceries. People waited patiently with shopping carts full of wood and canned goods. (Ummmm, what? I mean, it's just a weekend storm...we're not preparing for nuclear war or anything! And a grocery cart full of wood? From Whole Foods? Really?)

By Friday night, the storm had really begun, and though it wasn't run-on-the-grocery-store-worthy, I will say that the snow was really was coming down.

And then I awoke Saturday morning to look out my window and see the true affects of Snowmageddeon '10: almost 18 inches, then #4 storm in DC's history.

I spent the day mostly inside, except for a foray out into the Great Dupont Circle Snowball Fight, where conservative estimates are around 2,000 participants. It was like no one had ever played in the snow before. In most cities, a snow storm is just a reason to grumble about the inconvenience of winter, but here it's an open play day for all in the District!

I do really love snow. It's really beautiful. I love paintings of snowy landscapes. And I love all the great words associated with snow: flurry, trudge, slosh...there are different types of snow: sugar snow, corn snow, slush...you can have a blanket of snow, a drift of snow, a deluge of snow, an accumulation of snow...snow comes in flakes, balls, crystals, flurries...ok, I guess I can stop there.

Hope you're enjoying whatever form of winter you have...and I really hope to be blogging again tomorrow from the comfort of my bed!

I couldn't find satisfactory pictures online, so here are some shots from my camera:

BEFORE (remember that beautiful snowy run I did last Wednesday?):

AFTER:That one is from Saturday morning. These next few are from today - aka DC is completely inept at snow removal!