A Few of My Favorite Things...

As you may have picked up on here over the past...how long has it been? Four? Yeah, let's go with four years, is that I love to make fun of how inept weather forecasters are. A lot of my vitriol is directed toward the boobs on the Weather Channel--Jeff Morrow, I'm looking at you. Not really. You have a huge head and it angers me. But the rest of you are on my list.

But not you, Maria LaRosa. I couldn't be angry with you even if you ate live kittens on national television...which might actually be good theater. Admit it. You'd tune in just to see how that went.

Anyway, I was watching the local forecast on Friday to get an idea about how the weekend would shape up since I was planning on doing some outdoorsy type work and putting up Christmas lights. That's when I heard the local forecast say there was a slight chance for some flurries or some light snow on Saturday night during the overnight, but any accumulations would be confined to the areas near the Virginia border.

Oh cool, I thought, A little bit of snow would set a lovely background for the holiday season.

I even told my wife. "They're calling for some flurries on Saturday night. Just to let you know." She had to work, so I thought I would warn her. We both then laughed, because, if they call for snow, it's more likely that it'll be 90 degrees and sunny. Even at night.

Saturday arrived and I took my son with me and we went and got our hair cut, we did some Christmas shopping for my wife, and then we grabbed some lunch--McDonalds, the Lunch of Champions! Well, he's a champ. I'm a tubby white guy hurtling toward middle-age.

On the way home, I noticed some shit flying by the window. "Hey, buddy!" I said, "I think that's snow!"

"It is! It is snow!" he said in his gleeful, charged-up on McDonalds six-year-old voice! "Oh, it's going to be awesome!"

See, told you he's a champ.

I didn't want to crush his little heart, though, by telling him that the few flurries we saw sail past the windshield would probably be it for the snow. It stopped after a few seconds, and he wondered where the snow went. I explained it to him that there's probably some bands of snow moving through the clouds, and he understood.

We made it home with only a few more flurries and got inside. I started up another load of laundry, and saw a few more intermittent flakes float past the window, so I ran into the living room to open the blinds so that the kids could see it. I returned to my domestic chores and looked up to see actual snow falling from the sky. No more of this flurry shit. This was actual snow.

I went back into the living room and pointed it out to the kids. They were enthused and watched it for a few seconds and then I went to make my daughter some lunch (she's a champ, too, but I didn't bring her any lunch because it would have been cold and everyone knows that cold McDonalds only tastes good when you're hungover and ALREADY filled with remorse). The kids were talking about playing in the snow and my heart sank because, well, we weren't getting any kind of measurable snowfall out of this. The weather men had forecasted a few flurries, and, to be honest, I was surprised it snowed at all.

Imagine my further surprise when I dished up a bowl of soup for my daughter and saw that the backyard was white-ish already.

Holy Shit! I thought, This could be for real!

And, it was. We ended up with about two inches of snow on the ground, which the kids got to play in and enjoy. I do feel kind of sad, however, because if I wasn't there for them to pelt with snowballs, I don't think they'd get any enjoyment out of life.

The truly funny thing about the snow shower event was that the local hacks were still on the television, saying that there might be a slight chance of snow, but there shouldn't be any accumulation. The National Weather Service then popped up with a Winter Weather Advisory (because if there's anything that frightens Southerners more than diversity, it's snow), and yet the locals were saying that accumulations would only be significant in the counties bordering Virginia.

Morons.

*sigh* It was fun, however. I had forgotten how great it is to look out the window in the gloaming of nightfall during a solid snow event, when the edges of everything sort of blur into the background and the flakes drift through the picture. It's quite lovely.

Not as lovely as Maria LaRosa wearing a pair of fuck-me boots, but lovely nonetheless.