Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Does anyone belive that posting guards or doubling the number of guards [at monuments] serves as a deterrent to terrorism? The security posture of the capital is reminiscent of the simple-minded soul who doggedly searches for a lost item in the lighted area under a street lamp instead of in the darkness where he actually lost the item but can't see well enough to find it. Similarly, the activity of our capital's guard force is emotionally fulfilling, providing the satisfaction of doing something, but is probably unavailing." -- Doug Crowe, in a letter to the editors of The Washington Post (Saturday, 2004-01-24, p. A18)

Drove home today in freezing drizzle ... which wasn't too bad on I495 and I95 as long as people maintained non-scary following distances (which a surprising number of people did).

Got to my house, and my side of the street was off limits because of street-cleaning hours. Now I know darned well that the street sweeper isn't coming by when the curb lane has several inches of snow in it, but I don't know whether the ticket-writer will come and write the ticket anyhow -- reason says no, but this is a city government so I'm not sure reason is sufficient to determine the answer. But the other side of the street is posted "Snow Emergency Route" -- subject to towing during a snow emergency. I think I heard WTOP-AM say that Washington DC was in a state of snow emergency, but WTOP doesn't give that kind of information for Baltimore, being a Washington radio station. And the closest thing Baltimore has is WBAL-AM, mostly conservative talk radio, not news, but I thought they had traffic and weather a few times per hour. No dice: they were running an infomercial without interruptions.

So ... the same question I've wondered for the past few winters: how is one supposed to know whether a snow emergency has been declared? Other than by finding an expensive ticket on one's windshield or discovering that one's car has been towed, that is? (Last winter, during one storm, I asked a police officer whether a snow emergency had been declared. He looked startled and yelled to another officer, relaying my question. Neither of them had any idea, nor knew whom to ask.)

I came indoors to find a very hungry cat -- before I left I had put out a bowl with several servings of the food she likes and another bowl with several servings of donated food that she doesn't care for (but will eat if she gets hungry enough). The first bowl was empty, the second had been nibbled at, and Perrine was insisting that she was STARVING. (I fed her a normal amount. She ate that and has been bugging me for more food ever since. She can wait until her normal evening feeding, and if she's really that hungry in the meantime, there's perfectly edible, if non-preferred, food sitting out there for her.)

Then I noticed water dripping from the ceiling and went upstairs to investigate. I'm not sure why water was dripping unless Perrine learned to flush the toilet while I was away, but the toilet is not working. Running hot water into the sink eventually causes a backup via the bathtub drain. The kitchen sink drains just fine, as does the sing in the basement next to the washer, and the toilet in the basement flushes without backing up. I've gotten some advice for a couple of things to try. I'm not looking forward to cleaning parts of the kitchen with bleach yet again once I get this sorted out.

I was expecting a package via UPS. It had not arrived on Friday. Yesterday I checked the tracking page on the UPS web site, and saw that they'd attempted to deliver it and would make another attempt today. When I got home today there was a sticker on the front door from the first attempt (so much for the friends who tried to reach me by cell phone and failed, and decided not to ring the doorbell because if I wasn't home they didn't want to make that obvious to anyone watching). The sticker said "between 10:30 AM and 2:00 PM" today, so between all the other things I've been doing, every so often I reload the UPS page and see nothing at all for today on my package's track. Until five minutes ago, when an entry for today appeared: "5:35 PM BALTIMORE EMERGENCY CONDITIONS BEYOND UPS CONTROL". Uh, what's that mean, the UPS truck wound up in a snowbank or got a flat tire? A water main paved the UPS parking lot in a sheet of ice? Anyhow, I'm guessing the package will be rescheduled for tomorrow.

I'm trying to work up enough energy to brave the sleet and buy bread, milk, cooking oil, and sidewalk salt.

I've started noticing a disturbing smell. Like burning plastic perhaps? But it shifts, turning sort of pine-y at times. Has the CPU fan stopped again? Nope. Wander upstairs ... is it coming from the convection heater? I hope not ...

Sirens. Lots of sirens.

Oh my. I wonder where the fire is. Glance at the window and see clouds of billowing white. But that's not smoke, that's wow is it snowing hard now. Move to the front of the house; more of the same, but gee, that smell is stronger...

Flashing lights at the corner. Then a moment later, *CHPOOOF!*, thick clouds of black smoke directly in front of me! Uh, maybe a couple of houses away? I hope it's not the building right on the corner. It looks like something in the unit block of South Fulton Ave though, for sure.

Between the snow and the fire equipment, maybe I won't dig the car out for a grocery run. Hmm. Am I feeling well enough to walk to the store and back?

At least it's not my CPU making that smell this time.

[Edit 20:45 -- The volume of smoke quickly increased to the point where all I could tell was, "I am within a cloud of smoke that has snow in it." When the smoke finally tapered off from that, I could see firefighters on the roof of the house two doors from the corner, which must have been vacant because they used a chain saw to cut their way in through a piece of plywood over a window. Most of the emergency vehicles on Lombard have left or are in the process of preparing to leave -- coiling hoses and such -- but two fire trucks remain on Fulton Ave, a ladder is still poking over the lip of the roof, and I can still see a small amount of smoke coming out, so I guess the fire is under control but not yet completely extinguished. Traffic is squeezing past on Lombard now. It's quite slippery out there -- the fire trucks look sure-footed, but they're heavy as sin and have chains on their rear tires. A city bus went by looking rather tentative, and passenger vehicles are spinning their wheels.]