Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

The weather tricked me with regard to clearing the sidewalk. When I looked a few minutes ago it was still snowing. On the news, I heard a lot about area snow-removal/snow-management efforts, and between the remarkably clear state of the roads most of yesterday (before pavement temperatures had dropped) and the reports of how they were going to salt all the side streets while everyone was asleep, I was surprised to see what a mess Lombard Street has become in the past few hours. Until dinnertime it had been black, then the less-tavelled eastbound lane grew a spotty greyish coat while the westbound lane stayed black, but in the wee hours the whole street went white and slippery-looking. And I'm not seeing any sign of that new blue salt they said they're using so people will be able to tell whether their street has been salted yet. (At least I think that was supposed to be used in the city. Did I mis-hear, and it's really just the county using the blue stuff?)

Mom's desire to avoid driving in the snow yesterday meant postponing dinner until sometime over the weekend. (I don't blame her, especially if it was snowing harder in Bowie than it was in Baltimore.) I just hope that the even messier looking pavement today doesn't cause problems with today's plans. Poor visibility but black pavement yesterday, clear air and white roads today? Maybe it'll turn out to be only my neighbourhood and others inhabited by similar socioeconomic demographics that are messy, and most of dmk's drive and the places I need to go will only be affected for the block in front of my house. It's not the first time I've wanted to toss a camera attached to a balloon out the window to get a wider view of road conditions in town without actually clearing off the car and driving around.

The thing is, this isn't a lot of snow, even for here. It's enough to be Significant Accumulation by local standards, but it's not an ohmyGodaonceinadecadeblizzard quantity. It's very much within the "we should have Lots Of Practice dealing with this amount" range. And the last time we had Significant Snowfall this winter, Baltimore County did manage to act like it was a fairly ordinary, non-flummoxing, non-overwhelming quantity of snow. And the city did not measure up.

We're talking about four to five inches reported, and it looks like rather less than that at my house. All you folks living in places where that much snow in twenty four hours is something plows and salt trucks can keep up with may now snicker. (And for distant folks, I should point out that many of the folks snickering along with you are right here in Maryland, just not in Baltimore.)

Then again, they did say they were going to do streets like mine while folks were asleep, and insomnia has kept me awake, so maybe that's why my block hasn't been salted: like Santa Claus, the salt trucks won't come if you're awake?

"Byte for byte, there's far more innovation coming out of the dark basement of a few clever virus writers than from the big software companies who are trying to advance technology and truly innovate. On one side we have smart programmers who are trying to pack more and more functionality into a smaller and smaller size. On the other side, we have smart programmers at large companies building applications faster than ever before, bigger than ever before, using rapid development tools that allow human beings to design software with more holes and flaws than ever before." -- Kelly Martin, "Complexity Kills Innovation", SecurityFocus, 2005-02-17

I finally got one decent night's sleep, and the very next night I get smacked with insomnia. Feh. Anyhow, I just posted this to talk.bizarre and figured I'd share it here as well. (I've made minor stylistic edits and deleted some bits that are redundant in light of my 5 AM entry, but have not done the complete rewrite that I probably should have.)

In my part of the world there is a well-documented (and frequently mentioned) but poorly-understood phenomenon which drives hordes of people to dash to grocery stores in a purchasing frenzy to buy weeks worth of bread and milk and (depending on the county they grew up in) either eggs or toilet paper, whenever the weatherman mentions that snow is on the way. This isn't just a regional running joke; you can see the effects in any area grocery store: the depleted shelves in those sections, the odd behaviour in the checkout line, the crowding at different hours than when the stores are usually busy in other weather. It's real.

At some point it dawned on me (and I mentioned it about a month ago) that the Snow Panic Purchase Trinity are all snow-coloured items. Oh, sure, a loaf of bread is brown on the outside, but people are buying sliced sandwich bread, and when you look at a slice of white bread, what's the colour that comes to mind to describe it? And admittedly there's yellow on the insides of the eggs, but I'm inclined to label eggs "white things" anyhow. So I've been wondering whether there's supposed to be some magical (or at least superstitious) effect, some power or protection to be gained, by making White Purchases in the face of The Dreaded White Stuff From The Sky. (Or maybe it's merely the power of suggestion urging people toward buying white things (much as the word "yellow" bounced around a half-asleep Arthur Dent's brain that fateful morning), but it's more fun to try to figure out what magical purpose such a ritual would serve, William of Ockham be damned.) Is it to deflect the full force of the storm and reduce the snowfall totals?Or to insulate the purchaser from snow-caused delays and inconveniences?

(And does something similar work against a heat wave or drought? Facing an unusually hot spell in the summer, should we buy yellow foods to represent the sun, or blue foods (of which there really ought to be more, dammit) to represent a cloudless sky?)

But the reason I'm writing this now is that the snowstorm here has just ended, and just as I was finally getting sleepy enough that I might be able to crash, I also became very hungry...

... And while trying to decide which of those needs to satisfy, it occurred to me that the cottage cheese in my fridge would make an extremely quick and convenient snack and possibly not interrupt my progression toward slumber ...

And when it hit me: Snow-Coloured Food. Does this mean that I am not immune to that mysterious White Stuff Urge after all? No better than the wild-eyed panic-shoppers? Or is there some great (or at least mildly helpful) magical purpose to my eating white food this morning?

And finally, if I sprinkle Old Bay seasoning on top of my cottage cheese, would that be a metaphor for the trucks that spread orange sand over snowy streets?

Would it work as sympathetic magic to summon one of those salt trucks that haven't shown up yet?

(We'll conveniently overlook the fact that they're supposed to be spreading blue salt these days.)

Of course, thinking too much about this, and taking the time to type it up, has chased away the sleep that had seemed so near. So I could make a more interesting breakfast instead. But perhaps I'll go ahead and do the experiment.

But if I don't sleep, and the salt truck appeareth not, I won't know whether it's because the spell is ineffectual in general, or because my wakefulness has cancelled it out by keeping Salta Claus away.

Update: While I was polishing this entry, a snowplow did come by.

Didn't sleep: thus tired.

Rehearsal tonight: thus worried about alertness status from now until then.

Just got back from trying on bridesmaid dresses: thus feeling full of smiles, feeling pretty.

There's a longer entry in there waiting to be written, about the general phenomenon of how clothing choices and mood/headspace interact, but not today -- gonna see if I can get about a three hour nap. Wish me luck.

Yay organza! Pretty!