Snow Day

 Do you know how long it's been since it snowed in DC? That would be 711 days, per the Washington Post. (As measured by at least 0.5" being recorded in the District). (Because less than a half inch really doesn't count if you want to play in the snow, which is what we want.) So today was a great day! We had a good solid 2 inches of snow, at least on the grass. The sidewalks didn't accumulate much on our side of the street, though our neighbors across (north facing) got some snow to shovel.

Snowy weather is a complex thing in DC, which I know most of the country doesn't understand. But despite owning snowplows and large silos (sheds?) of salt, DC strongly prefers to just shut down if it snows. We know it is very Southern behavior, but the truth is, snow is like Russian Roulette around here. The forecasts are tricky, and if they're wrong, lots of people get in trouble. Because it's a huge metropolitan area, and it only takes a few crashes on the freeway before millions of people are stuck on the road for hours. Believe me - about 5 years ago, we had several friends spend the night in their cars when a snowstorm ended up being much worse than expected, the roads turned to ice, and cars that got stuck were abandoned on the road. Thousands of people waited for the sun to come up and melt the ice, because the police literally couldn't do anything. Oh yeah, and there was that one friend of ours who drove to work, but couldn't drive home because the roads were so messed up. So he took the metro to try to get to where his wife could pick him up. But then the metro shut down because it was too dangerous to run the trains, stranding him close to our house. He called and asked Marriner for help. Marriner drove a mile towards the metro, got stuck and couldn't move, pushed his car off the road, walked home, and called our friend to say sorry, couldn't help. The friend ended up walking several miles to the church and sleeping in the clerk's office. For a few hours, I think he got in like at 3am. 

The thing about DC is that the temperature is often close to freezing this time of year. If the air is just a little above freezing, we get rain. If it's below freezing, we get snow. But if it hovers right about freezing, we get ice, which is literally the worst. Sometimes we get snow that melts, then re-freezes. Sometimes we get plain rain that freezes. Either way, it's going to turn into ice and be nasty to drive on. Just today, Marriner and I were remembering what it was like back in UT when you make sure not to drive too slow on the snow so you don't get stuck. Because the snow doesn't automatically turn into ice the minute you touch it. Those were the days.

ANYWAY, all of this is to say that things tend to shut down here on snow days. Especially now, where we're sorta shut down anyway, there's pretty much a don't go out attitude. 

Today (Sunday) was a snow day. We woke up to a coating of snow, and it was supposed to grow throughout the day. Now the forecast had started as 4-12 inches and been downgraded to 3-5 inches, so the storm seemed to be under-performing. But I was sorta in the "Why not shut down and just not worry about it?" camp. Marriner maintains his true Utah roots. He didn't think things looked very bad, and we could get to church just fine. Especially since we hadn't met in person for 3 weeks in a row (covid exposure and stake conference) and some people had been waiting for a long time for the sacrament. I did not like this idea - I had planned my schedule for the morning around leaving for church (the family room) at 10:20, not 9:45. But Marriner was right - the roads looked completely fine, snow was barely sticking at all. So we went to church. And the roads were absolutely not dangerous. There was just us, the missionaries and one elderly person there. We watched the service on zoom in the chapel, then had the sacrament together. Marriner was really touched by the unique service. I confess, a non-related issue related to some children's behavior kept me from enjoying the moment. Why do some kids hold grudges for so long, anyway? But in the end, I was glad we went. I was even glad we took the grudge-miesters. 

Tomorrow is back to normal life. Despite having 100% distance education right now in our school district, we get a 2-hr early dismissal tomorrow because of the snow. Now that's more like what I expect from this area :) 

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Can I just muse for a second about why my kids rub their tummy to sign please, instead of their chest? Are kids' chests just so small, they can't easily access them? Do they just not distinguish between the two, since they're flat all the way down? Are their cute, protruding tummies easier to reach? Does it have to do with their arm-to-body-length ratio being different than an adult's? Whatever the reason, my little kids all rub their tummies to say please. Sometimes they get going so fast when they say "Please bless" that they catch their shirts on their fingers and pull them up to their chins (both the fingers and the shirt!) It's ok, they're little, nobody minds a 3-year-old belly button. Their funny location is even funnier when they're blessing the food. It looks like "Yummy, I'm so hungry - bless the food!" :)

Ok, ok, enough musing, Marriner finished his work, and I'm going to bed. Happy Snow Day, everyone!