Buried Alive!
Obviously we survived the "Blizzard of 2010." This is probably one for the record books, maybe 27 inches of snow in Baltimore City and 38 inches in Elkridge. To quote Khan from Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan: "Buried Alive! Buried Alive!" As I'm writing this I'm probably one of the minority of people in this country who are not watching the Superbowl wright now. Two of my friends (male) have already called me about the game at halftime.
Some of the residents in my building spent half a day today digging their cars out in the parking lot. Luckily, we were parked next to the building, which partially shielded our car from the brunt of the snow. We had to dig the tires out, but surprisingly, there was very little snow on the car itself. In 2003 it was completely covered. This afternoon a couple people organized residents parked in various sections of the lot to move their cars to a clear area while the remaining spaces were plowed out. It makes it easier when people work together as a community to get something accomplished. I appreciate the fact that our condo fees pay for plowing and shoveling, but it was mildly annoying to see the snowplow driver yakking on his cell phone while plowing the lot and not paying attention to other things (for example, the fact that he was blocking me in when I was trying to move my car).
It's been nice being at home and watching the snow from the window. Falling snow is a lovely sight. Didn't have to go anywhere Friday, and am not scheduled to work tomorrow. Got a lot of household chores accomplished. Tim doesn't teach tomorrow night because the University of Baltimore is closed. I'm sure that by Tuesday things will be pretty much back to normal, unless we get more snow, which is the current prediction. I feel sorry for the people trying to dig out of the side roads that don't get plowed right away. As one of my neighbors pointed out today, there are some advantages to living at the corner of a major intersection--we get plowed out pretty quickly, and there are several grocery stores within walking distance.
On Saturday nothing at all was moving. It was unusual to go to bed and hear SILENCE from Coldspring Lane--usually we have some white noise on such as a fan to help drown out traffic noise. There was a police car blocking entry to to Coldspring much of the day yesterday, because several trees had fallen down across the road between Roland Avenue and Falls Road. Not that many people TRIED to go down Coldspring or Roland--most major roads had one lane open for emergency vehicles and everyone else was being urged not to drive. It was interesting to see the die-hard runners and dog-walkers stop to chat with the police officer as he stood by the car--some of us thought at first he was stranded.
The snow was so heavy that it flattened some evergreen trees to the ground and broke branches off of a couple of magnolia trees outside our building. There is snowpack melting off the roof and icicles dangling from the windows, and several times today loose snow crashed to the ground and scared the crap out of our cats.
I walked around inside my building and took photos of the snow through the windows on various floors and from a few brief forays outside:
Flickr Slideshow
Flickr Set
And, just for fun, you can also see Willie, one of the cutest dogs ever, who lives in my building.