Snowpocalypse 2007!

Yesterday as the church service ended and we all prepared to shuffle ourselves from the sanctuary to the fellowship hall for our "Note Burning Celebration" (catered by Famous Dave's, which I suspect was the reason behind the enormous attendance and not really joy and delight at having paid off the building extension six years early. Don't get me wrong, six years less interest is a good thing and well worth of celebrating. But seriously, we were all just there for the barbeque.) I chanced to notice that it was beginning to snow just a little. So it was with a smile, and perhaps a few hops of joy that I related this to Tim as he scurried around trying to pick up and put away all the sound equipment ("Tim! Tim! Snow! It's snowing! Look! Snow!" There might have been a few more exclamation points involved, but I'm taking the 5th.) Tim's response was considerably less enthusiastic; he simply wanted to make sure I was going to fix him a plate so he'd be sure to get some food since it would take him awhile to get down there after putting everything away.

With a quick prayer that the snow would continue, I trotted down the stairs and got in the shorter of the two food lines in order to fix two plates. (This is a bit of a snow-driven miracle in and of itself. Generally, if you see me in a line? Get in a different one. I have an uncanny knack of picking the line that looks shortest but will, in fact, take you roughly six hours longer than any other line. Especially in the grocery store. My presence is pretty much a guarantee that a minimum of four price checks will be required by the person or persons in front of me. If there's no one in front of me, then I will get the checker who is bored with their life job and feels it necessary to initiate chit chat and commentary on all items as they cross the scanner. "Oh, you use this brand? I like the store brand, it tastes just as good. But not in product X, just this one. Never get the store brand product X. One time I got that and..." Even attempts to nod and "Mmm" appropriately don't get me through the line faster, so very often I will gamely attempt to participate in the conversation, most likely causing someone else to feel that if they get in a line it's always the slowest one, even if it looks quickly, because they get behind the person who actually tries to engage the checker in conversation.)

Anyway, we watched the snow fall while we ate and out of the corner of our eyes during the note burning ceremony. This is the second note burning that I've attended and it seems to be a particularly Southern Baptist phenomenon. (Or perhaps I've never been at another church that paid off their building, though in the back of my mind that doesn't seem to be the case.) Essentially the ceremony consists of long winded speeches by each member of the building committee (particularly, in our case, the chairman who struck me as very similar to a younger Bob Barker - I don't know if he intended that to be the case, but each time he asked someone to come on down I flinched inside) followed by the pastor holding up a copy of the loan paperwork (at which point I almost expected us to be encouraged to Boo, like it was a villan in a bad melodrama) and then, in our case, the financial secretary (after prolonged fumbling with the clicky-type lighter) setting it alight (again, expecting the cheering light to turn on) and holding it for all to see until little pieces started to flake off and fingers were in danger, at which point it was dropped in a bowl on the podium to finish burning out. Did I mention we were all pretty much there for the barbecue?

After filing out, I realized that now that my car essentially travels from my garage at home to the garage at work, I have somehow neglected to have a scraper/brush combo in my car. Thus I got to use my bare hand to wipe off the snow (because I also neglected to bring my gloves. And oh, fine, coat to church.) I was duly impressed as I drove home to see that they'd already started treating some of the main roads.

The girls were quite happy to frolic in the snow and would run in and out through their doggy door, delighted to jump on your lap and then shake all the wet snow off all over you before running back outside to repeat the process more times than you actually thought would be possible in the given amount of time available.

All told, we got about an inch at our house and, while the roads were semi-slick in our neighborhood this morning as we left, they weren't awful (though they were untreated). Still, I was pleased to note that our school system had once more overreacted and closed everything for the day even though all the neighboring systems had 2 hour delays. Today they're saying it may get up to 50, so the 'pocalypse was shortlived, but it gives me hope that more winter may actually be in our future. Yay!