Snow Day

It’s a snow day here in Nebraska today.  That means everything is closed, the roads are dangerous and my family is home with me.  I am truly excited to have the family here as we are usually going in different directions all at once.  The only problem is that being with them doesn’t make me want to write.  I usually like an empty house for that.  Still, I tore myself away from them to write this blog.  Snow days here are very different than in Michigan or Ontario, Canada where I used to live.  In those places, snow days would only be called for the schools and only if the snow came overnight.  If it fell during the day, you were just out of luck.  Businesses stayed open unless there was a power outage or there was a snow emergency.  On the other hand, they also did a much better job of clearing and salting the roads. (That is likely why my old car was rusting out.)  Here in Nebraska, they announced school closings yesterday, before a flake of snow had fallen.  Even the colleges were closed starting yesterday.  They had been forecasting this storm for a week!  That’s a long time to be predicting the weather.  And will someone tell me why there is such a rush on the grocery stores when a snowstorm is coming?  It’s a one day storm and people are stocking up for the apocalypse.  I could understand needing milk or bread but having two carts worth of food seems like going overboard.  Maybe they think storms bring out zombies and they’ll have to hide for weeks before it’s safe to come out.  Yep.  That must be what they’re all thinking in the grocery lines.  So far we have about 6” with 4 more on the way.  Nevertheless people are shoveling and snow blowing now.  If you know more snow is coming, why do twice the work and shovel again?  Why not wait till it’s done and then shovel?  My next question is, why is there never anything good on television when you’re stuck in the house?  When you have to work there’s lots of great movies and shows on.  Today there is nothing of merit.   On days like this I miss having a fireplace.  The house didn’t come with one and it’s just nice for ambiance.  I think we’ll bake something today.  Snow days just seem like the time to bake something.  Maybe we’ll make cookies or brownies or cake.  Great!  Now I’m hungry.  Well, I’m off to rejoin the family while the plows work on the roads outside.