lolcats

moar funny pictures

Actual: 3.5"

Plus, the roads were filled with a plethora of stoopid drivers, who so thoughtfully stayed on the roads for this morning's drive in to work.

I think that means I win. Oh, you didn't know? There was a contest, a snowfall prediction contest. It wasn't fair, though, any idiot could have won. And look, any idiot DID win!

Speaking of idiots, I raced home (at 10 mph) after work, shoveled a quick path, changed into ski clothes, put some kick wax on my skis, found my ski gloves, and hopped back in the car to head to Como where little boy was racing. I got about halfway there and realized that I couldn't remember putting my boots into the car. By that time I was far enough that it would have been stupid to turn around and go back home, so I hoped it was just an early senior moment. Nope. I got to the park and looked in the trunk - no boots. I waited around and soon enough little boy showed up and we drove home and finished shoveling.

That much traffic was enough for me to veto orchestra rehearsal across town. So we stayed home and I made chili & cornbread and we watched House, which I never get to watch.

I went out this morning to run in the snow wearing my screw shoes. Mine aren't as dirty as the picture here, this is from the website that showed me how to do it. And my clumsy self did not fall at all. Of course, running on the Gateway Trail through what is now 8" of snow, and which appears to have been commandeered by XC skiers, was not the easiest thing I've done. I highly recommend screw shoes. Much, much cheaper than YakTrax. I think I paid less than a buck for the 40-odd 1/2" sheet metal screws that I bought.

It was also something like 8 degrees with a 14 mph north wind. Brrr! I had to break out the face mask and wear two pairs of gloves.

This is for my mandaroo:
Skiing at lunchtime with coworker Kerstin. Fun! There's a golf course conveniently located just across the highway from our worksite. Hmm... golf course. You can ski there! So we did.

little boy has an orchestra concert at school tonight. We have to be there early-ish. Why can't I find my knitting that's missing? Could be because I haven't worked on it since I took it to Russia. Hmmm... I feel like I've looked everywhere, but of course I couldn't have. There's a set of needles in there that I want and a project that I really should finish before the holidays.

We stayed home for that??

or, The Meteorologists who Cried Wolf.

I whined in a previous post about how today's weatherpeople are sorely lacking forecasting skillz. They rely so heavily on computer models that (here I go sounding full of superstition) I don't think they have anyone in their offices who has an ounce of weather sense. A little weather sense is a good thing for someone claiming to forecast the weather to have.

Saturday's "Winter Storm Warning" (alert! alert! everyone be afraid! something bad will happen unless you all conform!) amounted to a blowy, slightly drifty, completely ordinary and manageable 4.5 inches. Yes. I said four and one-half inches of snow. Less than what they called "flurries" when I spent a weekend in St. Cloud in 1987 (their flurries totaled 6 inches that day). Even Saturday morning, the weatherpeople were all excited about getting 8 to 12 inches of snow in the metro area. By noon, they were still insisting that 10 inches would fall in the cities. Uh uh. Nope. Not even close.

They're saying 3 to 7 inches of snow for today. My prediction: 2" or less, especially if the storm tracks away from us. But I'll go out at lunch time and look around a little to get a feel for things.

Edited to add: Maybe 4". I'm going skiing after work! I also predict a 100% probability of stoopid drivers.

The run before the storm

It was 17 this morning when I woke up at 7:30. The wind was blowing, but not terribly. Sky & I headed out for 7 miles. I took the Gateway Trail because I wanted to avoid the wind. Sadly, whichever direction I ran, the wind was in my face, despite the trail being lined on both sides with trees. Ugh. But I got in 7 at a decent pace, 9:00-ish.

Then SO wanted to seal up the roof where we got new aluminum on the sunporch before the snow started. We did that and as we were finishing, the first flakes were hitting me in the face. We covered up the patio furniture and firepit with a tarp and weighted it down with bricks. We put the ladder away (I didn't get hit in the face with anything this time) and what else? Headed to the grocery store with everyone else in the Twin Cities because the snow might prevent us from having access to purchased food for the next 18 hours. It was crazy busy at the store. The parking lot was practically full. The lines were insane.

Then, to Menard's to get SO's bday and xmas gifts. She'd changed her mind on what she wanted for her bday and the tools were on sale until tomorrow, so off we went. Mmmm. New hammer-drill. New jigsaw. Nice. And a halogen lamp cuz all our other ones seem to have broken. (It was way fun trying to put housewrap on above the sunporch using a flashlight. Luckily, neighbor Ken took pity on us and brought his over for us to use.) And a couple of sawhorses because they were on sale and we only have two and we're going to build a new garage sooner or later (but not today).

So now we'll just hibernate in the basement for the rest of the day and watch movies and eat lots of food. I already had some Bailey's and coffee this morning. Yum. And I made some pumpkin chowder for lunch. There may yet be caramel apples or apple crisp or pumpkin pie in our future. little boy has a skiing appointment tomorrow afternoon. He was waxing skis last night and he waxed mine today.

In other news, my mom got a new car yesterday. Yay Mom! It's been, what 13 years?, since she bought a new car. It looks like this:



Mmmmm.... it looks speedy! And fuel efficient. And environmentally friendly. And speedy!