"Teddy, you be strong, you survive... You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you. I will find you!"
Video courtesy of amandareckonwith on YouTube.
In our post-snowpocalyptic world, we're doing our best to dig out before we get walloped again with anywhere from 6 to 16 inches.
It's been a big job.
I think there's a car under here.So don't even THINK about taking this parking space.
Someone must be from Chicago.Or this one. 
Find your own spot, buddy. This one is TAKEN.
The Cyclist and The Baker begin digging out our Subaru.
The Little Supervisor in her first hour of what will turn out to be a three-hour session of snowy fun.
Her friend Avery (The Baker's son) enjoys the white stuff.
The snowcap on this lamppost reminds me of a cappucino.When you grow up in Minnesota, snow is simply a way of life. You just put on your mittens, boots, and hat and go about your business. (Note to my East Coast friends: You will see that an UMBRELLA is not listed. This is intentional. Umbrellas are for RAIN, not snow. Thank you for your attention to this matter.)
When you live in the D.C. area, however, the mere prediction of a few inches of snow causes school closures and shortages of milk and toilet paper at grocery stores. Add words like “crippling,” “epic,” and “historic” to that prediction, and you have MASS HYSTERIA, even by the meteorologists, who really should know better. (Where is that adorable Paul Douglas when I really need him?)
Proof that The Cyclist should be negotiating the Middle East peace process: Look at his equanimity in the face of grocery-store Snowmaggedon.
Which brings us to this weekend’s storm and the expectation that it would bring anywhere from 10 to 24 inches or more to the nation’s capital. In other words: SNOWMAGGEDON. School systems announced on Thursday NIGHT that they would be closed Friday. Arlington County sent out a bulletin warning people to “be prepared to shelter in place for 3 to 5 days.” The Washington Post delivered our Sunday magazine, comics, and coupons FRIDAY morning in anticipation of the snownami. Supplies of snow shovels and sleds began dropping precipitously at area hardware stores. (I called Brown’s Hardware in Falls Church, Va., on Wednesday at 8 a.m. to see if they had sleds—they had three varieties. By the time I arrived on Wednesday (which was also a snow day here in Arlington), they were sold out of saucers. I got the last two “snow sprints,” leaving just toboggans for the rest of the day’s customers.)
But that is NOTHING compared to the grocery stores, because when Washingtonians hear “snow,” they RUSH to the grocery store to stock up on milk, bread, and toilet paper like it’s the modern day version of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “The Long Hard Winter” and they will be trapped on the South Dakota prairie for the next three weeks.
No chick-chick for you!
When we went to our local grocery store on Thursday at 4:30 p.m., the lines already measured 10 to 12 people deep. The chicken breast was a giant, economy, Jim-Bob-Duggar-family-size package. The shelves that normally held flour and granulated sugar “looked like a war zone,” in the words of The Cyclist.
All the Nestle’s semisweet chocolate chips were gone; we bought Hershey’s instead. At the Harris Teeter in North Arlington, a friend reported that not an egg could be found. In D.C., so many people packed the Whole Foods on P Street that they had a 30-minute wait JUST TO ENTER THE STORE.
Hope you didn't need any flour.
Skeptical? Click here for a YouTube video from the Adams Morgan Safeway in D.C. (Warning: There is one F-bomb.)
REPENT NOW!!! THE SNOWPOCALYPSE IS COMING!!!!!!
It cracks me up. I remember getting maybe one—yes, one—snow day a year in Minnesota when I was a kid, and one of those came in April. And never ever in all my years in Minnesota have I ever known ANYONE to stock up on groceries in advance of an impending snowstorm. (Of course, during the Blizzard of ’96, which started on a Saturday night, I didn’t see a plow in our Fairfax, Va., neighborhood until WEDNESDAY, so maybe (some) planning is justified.)
But perhaps the last laugh may be on me: this morning, I couldn’t open our front door.
The Little Supervisor hosted quite a tea party this week, when snow closed preschool.
In Minnesota, this snowfall would just cause your mom and dad to remind you to wear your boots. In Virginia, this calls for a snow day.
A number of her dollies attended: Baby Shari, Rachel, Bilingual Lucy, Little Dora, and Itty-Bitty Twins Jack and Jane, who were wearing their sailing clothes on a very wintry Wednesday for some unfathomable reason. We were also joined by the ever-growing Monkey Family, which includes Big (Curious) George, Big Boy (Curious) George in the t-shirt, Mommy George, and Baby (Curious) George.
Crocheted cupcakes and imaginary tea, anyone?
Nochebuena Dora even wore her sombrero. She must have been quite hungry, given the size of the sandwich and cocoa mug by her place.
So fashionable.
The Little Supervisor even set up a special picnic for the animals, providing treats for Ginger the cat, Burrito the dog, Mommy Puppy, and the twin cows Davis and Thomas (named after neighboring towns in West Virginia's Canaan Valley).
The LIttle Supervisor created a regular Peaceable Kingdom at her latest tea party.
Sherwen, regretfully, was not invited.
Alison M. Rice