the weather is no excuse for anything, you fools
So. On Monday it snowed overnight, and it snowed most of the day Tuesday, and the result was just over two inches. Last night it sleeted all night so far as I can tell, and this morning there was thick layer of ice over most everything.
Even though I moved away from New England just over three years ago, I still have a laughing machine in my head that’s especially reserved for how this part of the country responds to winter weather. The state is completely incompetent when it comes to judging when to start using trucks, sand or salt, and which one to use relevant to the kind of stuff that’s on the ground. COMPLETELY. INCOMPETENT. And people drive scared when there’s slush on the highway but they blaze by when there’s unsalted powder. It’s not their fault, they don’t have to cope with this often enough to figure out how to respond (although the state has no excuse at all), but it still makes me laugh.
This morning MD called me and said I could come in as late as I wanted to or not at all, whenever I felt comfortable driving. Yeeah. I’ve delivered pizza in worse stuff than this, guys…although never had I driven on town-roads that were so utterly neglected. The parking lot was covered over in ice. But I still made it in and parked fancy, because that is how I roll. And/or I have seven New England winters of experience. I would have been on time, too, except that BF was blocking my car in and wanted to go to work a little later. Also scraping off his car was a serious chore.
But I’m here now. I don’t think it’s going to be a terribly busy day; the state government is shut down and so probably a lot of law offices are going to be closed as well. When MD made it in himself, he thanked me for coming in through all the mess. He said my drive must have been awful yesterday morning, too. No! It wasn’t! And it’s no big deal! Nothing on the road, short of a foot of unplowed snow or six inches of ice, should keep business from running! CRAZYPANTS.
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Our computers at home number three: BF’s PC, his laptop, and my Mac laptop. I haven’t used my Mac for well over a year, now, probably closer to two years, because I never bought Office for the thing and most of what I’d be using it for is Word. (Please reserve your comments about OpenOffice, and telling me that AppleWorks is just as good, so on. Not having Office was a huge pain, okay?) But I found out last semester that through the community college, I can get deep discounts on software, and so this past weekend I purchased the Office 2008 suite for my Mac for about $90. Last night I installed it, and I had largely forgotten just how wonderful my little Mac is. It’s so pretty, and so much fun to use, and so graceful where Microsoft hardware/programs are so clunky and dull. I look forward to using it lots more (again).
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I have a secret interest in sexual deviance, because while I only have one mildly unusual fetish of my own, I am fascinated by people who have uncontrollable and weird ones, and this article talks about a book that was written about four of the main fetishes out there. It’s a terrific article (and likely a terrific book), particularly: “Perhaps the sickness in deviance lies not in the object of desire but in the view of the self, as perverted rather than simply different.” YES. That is exactly it, thank you for putting it out in the media. The movie Secretary posited this exact thing in a way that was also sexy and thoughtful.
If you are also secretly interested in deviance, this book is a great primer. FBF got it when we split up and I miss it sorely.
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Nothing futher to add this morning. I hope you’re all less exasperated by your surroundings’ reaction to the weather than I am.
January 28, 2009 at 10:44 am
You would’ve been highly amused at our “snow day” here in Columbia, SC last week. Most of the town shut down for all or part of the day for less than one inch of snow. The university I work for opened two hours late, at 10:00. I came in at that time not because I wasn’t able to drive in all that scary snow, but because I was out taking pictures of it and having fun. Idiots.
That book looks VERY interesting! On behalf of perverts everywhere, I thank you.
Even before I’d ever witnessed a Massachusetts winter (and I was in the mountains, y’all, it was bad), and I was in high school here in coastal Maryland, I thought it was pretty silly the kinds of things they’d cancel school for. Similar to what you’re describing. Once we got school cancelled for fog, because all the students who had to go over the Bay Bridge were going to have a hard time driving. Yer all a bunch o’ wussies! [swigs from bottle of Thunderbird] Get off my lawn!
It is indeed VERY interesting. The most memorable thing in the book for me is a guy who gets off on women throwing pies at him.
January 29, 2009 at 10:10 am
I grew up where you used to live in New England. (East Windsor, CT, just south of Enfield.) I still live in New England, just a different part of it now.
FBF grew up in East Windsor, and I’m betting that you know him or his sister, because he’s about 5 years older than me.
And you know what? I would still prefer all the yahoos stay home on snowy days. I don’t mind the pre-snow hysteria, and the long lines at the supermarket where everyone lines up to buy milk and bread, because at least I know that these idiots will lock themselves into their houses.
Our first big snow storm of the season this year, the governor told business owners to send their people home early that day. Last December there was a storm that left people sitting in traffic for 7 hours as they commuted home. So, the gov was trying to fend that off.
Wouldn’t you know that the owner of the co where I work now wouldn’t let us leave? She grew up in an area where there’s a lot of snow, and said that the weather is no excuse. LOL. It took me an hour to get home, when it normally takes 20 min. And I actually stood up and left early b/c I was concerned for my safety.
Being concerned for your safety in a N.E. snowstorm is a completely different thing. The states up there actually do their best to get the roads passable BEFORE it’s time for work, and if you grow up there you know how to drive in it. Which means that if there is a storm like the one you’re talking about, it’s an excuse with merit, instead of an excuse of silliness.
I’d forgotten about the clamor in the supermarkets before a storm. Amusing.
January 29, 2009 at 12:40 pm
The lack of effective preparation gets worse as you travel south…even one state.
I stopped reading the article when it mentioned FEET!!!!!!!
If you live where I think you do, it’s where I spent some years of my childhood, and we got snow once, and it was half an inch. My mom said watching me try to build a snowman out of it was one of the most pathetic things she’s ever seen.
Sorry. There are people who have foot fetishes out there, you know.
January 29, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Knowing your family background, I would find it difficult ot belive that you didn’t pass through here once or twice during your childhood.
I have a foot phobia!!!!
We know.
January 29, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I am dying to get the name of this person you know from EW. It’s a ridiculously small town. Hell, there were less than 300 people in my high school. LOL. Email me. I think you can see my address when I comment.
Done and done.
February 3, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Heh, the first time I ever laid eyes on Dys she flew in to the Richmond airport. It had been sleeting all day, and they closed the airport for a while, sending us both into a tizzy. She was waiting in Detroit and she said something about why they didn’t clear off at least one runway, and the little lady beside her said, “Dear, how many runways do you think Richmond has?!?”
That’s hilarious. The most podunk airport I’ve personally been in is Baton Rouge; I’m surprised the runway wasn’t grassed over at that one.
I have no experience with New England winters, but winters on the great plains were something else. Dry, dry, dry cold, so much that I put on whatever flowery lotion the 70-year-old lady volunteering with us had just to keep my knuckles from splitting.
But the real eye-opener was the first time I drove up to Minnesota and saw the gates on the interstate exits. I wondered what they were for a few minutes before the light went on – they were there for when the interstate is closed.
Then I thought, “They close the interstate so much that they permanently installed gates on every exit?!?” That’s a different way to live.
It is, indeed, a different way to live. That’s how I’d describe N.E. winters. Just a different way to live.
Further edit: I was obviously distracted when I wrote those last inane sentences. It’d be pretty interesting to see winters that were that thick and deep. N.E. winters are just difficult.