Snow what

It is snowing in earnest here in the DC metro region. So far this winter we've only had one snowfall, which happened over a weekend and barely dusted the ground. In contrast, it seems like every other state to the north, south and west of us has been walloped lately. We've been waiting with bated breath for our snow this year, and now - permission to freak out, sir?

Our experience last year was like that which Icelanta and the New York area have right now, during our Snowmaggedon, or Snowpocalypse, if you prefer. In an area that gets on average 7 inches of snow a year, last winter we got more than 70 inches. Also like so many other metropolitan areas, we don't have the equipment or know how to deal with real snow, so everything shuts down. In the 2009-2010 winter, there was an entire week straight when our office didn't open and other onesy twosy days that we couldn't go to work.

Of course, the wonders of telecommuting meant I could work from the comfort of my home, tho I will say that plenty of my coworkers were noticably absent online and stil refer to that point in time as the "big vacation," I'm just saying ... and now at the mere rumor of a flurry, people are halfway out the door and ready to close the office early. it's an interesting phenomenom.

Don't get me wrong, it was fun in its own way to be stuck in our snug little house for a week last year surrounded by big beautiful piles of snow. I cleaned the oven twice for the heck of it. The dogs on the other hand were not so enamored. when we finally got dug out enough to get to a grocery store, the shelves were bare. But we never lost power, our heat worked fine and we had supplies enough to see us through. We fared better than a lot of others. In retrospect, I should have worried less about trying to get work done and just enjoyed everything as it was happening. In retrospect, we also should have done all the things we said we were going to do last year, like buy a second shovel, stock up on salt for the sidewalk, and get a sled.

Remains to be seen whether they will call tomorrow a snow day. And if so, how long it will take to clear our walks and coax our dogs out. I wonder what the penalty is for trespassing on federal land ... the FDA campus near us has some pretty good hills.