For awhile I managed to blog about once a year. NOT SO MUCH NOW!! Wow. It’s been over two years since I clicked into the blogosphere to write mine.
The Ducklings are now in their teens, the drake has alot of gray feathers, where there are any at all and I’m on the Duck Reduction plan again (Weight Watchers). WW is alot like AA – “It works when you work it!” I’m going to try to work it again and slim down the overabundance of pressure on parts of my body…my hips, my knees, etc.
Today’s topic is snow in the Metro DC area. I have lived here most of my ducky little life and it never fails to amaze me how dumbstruck and unprepared people are when it SNOWS. IN THE WINTER. In a region where we get snow every year. It is not a shock to the system and the culture at large like it is say, oh, in Atlanta! We have snow plows, chemical and sand trucks, snow shovels, snow boots, etc. Those poor friends down south had six snow plows for a major metropolitan area. Needless to say, in some places, snow should shut you down. It’s unexpected. It’s quite possibly a once in a lifetime event, inches of snow. They ought to take a moment and revel in it…and swear at it. But it does snow here. We ought to know how to comport ourselves, however we have another breed here. Washington area commuters.
Despite the overabundance of technology to predict, forecast, and TRACK the weather, They go to work when they know it’s coming, rather than having sense enough to take a personal day. They go shopping, when it could really wait a few days. They don’t cancel unneccesary appointments. They could hurt themselves, their vehicles, or DIE trying to get to them, but they go anyway. There are many that do call their employers to say in the wonderful, immortal words of Chuckie from the “Rugrats” : ” I don’t think that’s such a good idea”. They get blasted or at least frowned upon through the phone about it, and go in anyway. Against some of their better judgement. When they and their bosses see the error of their ways at the 11th hour, they start flowing out of their various workplaces. Then someone decides THEY SHOULD LET THE FEDERAL GOVERNTMENT OUT ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Really? Really????? Hello, you people have a nifty little thing called the liberal leave policy. At long last, people start meandering their way to the suburbs only to have good old reliable Mother Nature (you remember her?) dump four inches of snow on an already icy area in about an hour or two. Suffice to say that those snow drifts you saw on the GW parkway and route 50 were not snow drifts…they were abandoned cars. In the middle of the road in many places. God bless VDOT, MDOT and DCDOT for having to deal with the impatience of the masses as well. I am wondering how many little cars got squashed by salt trucks in the midst of this. It can’t have been pretty.
We here at the pond, primarily stayed put through it all. The duckling who was out, was back in before noon when the mess really started revving it’s engine. The drake and the other duckling and I stayed home entirely. Imagine that. Four less vehicles on the road because we decided there was no where we had to be that badly. Nothing was going to grow legs and run away if we didn’t get there while the sky was dumping white beauty on top of everything in sight.
The aftermath is settling down, we’re all on our way again, except for many of the friends with damaged cars from weather related crashes and those who are still trying to find what yard their car was towed TO. And we expect more of this…on Wednesday.
Hmmmmm.
