Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Snow usually means quieter traffic sounds than normal, and it's still snowing, though less heavily than at 23:30, but there was rather a lot of noise from someone revving his engine over and over. So I poked my head out the window to see what was up.

A looong, sleek, black coupe with a downright silly (but I will admit, quite stylin') expanse of hood and a great big Chevrolet logo decal on its huge rear window, was angled across the near lane of Lombard Street with its nose to the curb. I heard the engine race but didn't hear tires spinning, and the car barely moved. Once in a while it rocked. From the sounds of shifting, it seemed to be an automatic transmission. Then it inched forward onto the sidewalk, and resumed its rev-and-rock. Occasionally the driver turned the steering wheel. A little farther onto the sidewalk and another attempt at backing up, with some really long and loud stands on the gas pedal. "Has he lost reverse?" I wondered. "Perhaps he can squeeze between that light post and that front step ..." The driver seemed to get the same idea, inching forward farther still, but he got the angle wrong -- there was no way he was going to go up the sidewalk and keep his side-view mirror.

Finally a bit of force to the drive wheels, and the car staggered painstakingly backward off the sidewalk. As it did so, I saw the pink smear where it had been. "Oh no," I thought, "it's bleeding! His transmission is toast. Can I get his attention and tell him to give up and call a tow truck?"

He crawled east on Lombard Street. I'm not sure whether he'd noticed how badly his car was injured. I wonder how far he'll get. My nose was cold. I closed the window.

I felt sad for the car, and worried for this motorist in a dying car on a cold, wet night -- whom a few minutes earlier I had been silently calling all manner of rude names for disturbing the peace of the wee hours. But at least it was quiet again.

I hope he has a cell phone.

"When the integrity of biblical stories is kept intact, rather than being chopped up into sound bites as both evangelizers and mainstream preachers tend to do, it's easier to grasp that biblical truth is much less about facts than about relationships -- both within the text and between the reader and the Scripture. 'If I can get people to think of themselves as being in a relationship with Scripture,' says Roger Ferlo, a former Yale English professor who is now an Episcopal priest and author of Opening the Bible, 'then there is a chance they can recognize a relationship with God when they meet one.'" -- from "Does the Bible Tell Me So?", by Ann Monroe, Mother Jones, November/December 1997

Last night it snowed very dramatically, but as promised, washed away again this morning. Tonight they're predicting snow that'll stick, 3"-5" in B'more by the time it stops on Tuesday. Knew there was something I forgot at the grocery store yesterday: cottage cheese. Wanted to see whether sprinkling Old Bay on it and eating it would summon tardy salt trucks to my street like it did in February. Not quite curious enough to brave snow-panic shoppers just for that one item though. 'Specially not tired as I am right now.

Have to remember to check snow-emergency status (sounds like too little to trigger it, but with the first accumulation-for-rush-hour snowfall of the season, y' never know). And figure out where I left my gloves last spring.