Like this:

8 inches of snow right now in Arkansas.

I haven’t seen this much snow since I was five years old, living in West Virginia.  Having lived most of my life either in California or south of the Mason-Dixon line, snow was one of those rare winter pleasures, a few days’ break from the normal routine.  I remember my years in Georgia as a youth when snow was something that only happened once every three years if lucky, and quite often nothing more than a teaser.  Oh, there was the infamous Snowjam of 1982 I mentioned a while back, which looked something like this, but overall snow was infrequent in the South.

Yet the past few years winter storms have been making their way more and more down here, sometimes more than once a year.  Unlike farther north, the snow usually doesn’t stay more than a day or so and a week later you’re sitting in 50 degree or higher “warmth”, not believing that a few short days ago everything was covered in 4-6” of snow.  But until recently, two or more snow events a year down South was unheard of.

I should be thankful, though.  Another, more common occurrence down here during the winter is ice storms.  Nothing at all fun about those, especially given the fact that they are brutal on trees and power lines, often resulting in blocked roads and power outages for days on end at times.  Ice storms have their own peculiar frozen beauty, however I prefer a good snowstorm any day.

As of 10 am this morning, the streets, particularly my neighborhood, were solid sheets of ice.  They promptly failed my if-I-fall-on-my-ass-then-I’m-not-driving-on-it test.  However after about twenty minutes of walking around the neighborhood (and warily eying a few cars braving the polar caps, ready to scoot up into someone’s yard if they started sliding towards me) I noticed that bare spots of asphalt were starting to become visible, courtesy of the bright sunlight and blue sky.  Clear weather is forecast for a while, so maybe I’ll check out the roads again this afternoon and see if enough has melted to brave a few errands.  More concerning is everything refreezing overnight, since I absolutely positively have to make it to work tomorrow, given that I’ve missed a day and a half due to the three-day flu.  And I don’t get paid for the time missed, so next week’s check is going to be pathetic.  Luckily taxes are coming in soon.

Oh, did I mention I’ve been sick?  Went home about noon Monday alternating between sweats and chills.  I might have toughed it out for at least eight, if not a full twelve hours, but the repeated runs to the restroom (pun definitely intended) made me decide it would be far more comfortable being miserable at home.  Doing a lot better now but am still a little woozy in the head.  Flu and viruses have been making their rounds at work and elsewhere lately (JJ said he had something similar last week, so I blame him).

Speaking of JJ, did manage to take him to the movies last weekend.  He wanted to see Yogi Bear, which unfortunately wasn’t showing locally in 3D, but we went anyway.  Probably one of the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen, but that was beside the point.  The main goal was to get him away from the house where he could spend a little time with someone, anyone, and that made it all worthwhile.  His papa (the Reichmarschall) was especially being a dick to him all weekend (why couldn’t you have worked the weekend and been a dick there, at least you would’ve been making money), so I know he needed the time away.  Sadly I’ve had to accept this as the status-quo in his life, so I can only do what I can.  Hopefully once Yes Dear and I get settled into a place we can make time for him more often.

Things are going to accelerate here in the next couple weeks.  Yes Dear’s taxes should be in soon (praying all is there and no complications), and will have to put that down on a cheap place in town.  Will be going to GA in a couple weeks to move things out here, and am still looking around for things on the job front.  So hopefully I got my sick time out of the way, because I’ll need to be 100% for quite a while from here on out.

Meanwhile, a little appropriate music for the occasion (especially for you, Rachel):