CafeChatNoir

So, Forbes came out with their list of the 25 wealthiest counties in the United States, and my home county of Fairfax came in second. (Congrats to Loudon for coming in at #1.)

The median household income in Fairfax County is $106,785

Wow – sorry to my fellow residents for seriously dragging down the average.  I’ve lived and worked here for longer than I care to admit, and not even on my BEST year did I have a household income even within spitting distance of $106K.

Now, maybe it’s high because it’s a per household number and not per capita, and we have a lot of dual income families in the county.  Or, it could just be that I am a total slacker to never really aspired to much of anything.  :)

But really, where did this all come from?  When I went to bed last night at 2:30AM I looked at the local, regional and national radar – and I honestly could not see where any more snow could come from.  Everything was past us and heading in a northeasterly direction.  There was a very small blob of precip down by Blacksburg, but nothing else.  I really couldn’t see where there was any other precip.

Then I was awakened at 7:45 this morning by my NOAA radio kindly letting me know that we’re all going to die.  I am trying to find an animated loop of the regional radar over the past 6 hours to see when & where this second storm cell developed when there was nothing there 5 hours earlier.

I should have stuck with my instincts and just not gone to bed.  I’m serious – I was really toying with the idea.  (Too much snow + too much caffeine = ideas of staying up all night to beat Mother Nature.)  This is what the snow has done to me.  I had been keeping up with the snow on Friday night until I went to bed.  Last night, the driveway, sidewalk and car were cleared off.  And then I went to bed.  And it all went to hell.  IF I’D JUST STAYED UP ALL NIGHT THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED.

Part of me thinks that I should get out there and at least take a few whacks at it.  The intelligent part of my brain says not to set a toe outside until I see my neighbors out there or the wind dies down a bit.  My sweet southern neighbor brought home a brand new snowblower yesterday and while I would never in a million years expect or even ask for help unless I desperately needed it, maybe I’ll get lucky we’ll be out at the same time and he’ll want to do more snowblowing.  :)

There must be a 6 hour radar loop somewhere that I can look at if no other reason than to satisfy my curiosity.

Moxley, Mr. “I love the wind!” went out and then wouldn’t come back in.  WTF dog?!  So, I get dressed, shoes on and take 2 steps out the back door and he trundles right in.  I think it was his way of saying, “If I have to go to the bathroom in this nonsense, you have to get out of your PJ’s.”

*This was the same neighbor who was positively ecstatic when I was house/dogsitting and the tree fell in the driveway.  Before I could even figure out who to call or what to do, he was out there with the chain saw and a huge smile on his face.

And when I heard that on the radio, I will be perfectly honest, the words that came out of my mouth were, “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???”

I really don’t understand how folks that live in places like Buffalo and have this much snow on the ground most of the winter don’t just lose their minds.  I realize it must just be something you get used to after you’ve lived there a while, but I guess I can say I understand how someone might feel the first year they lived there.  (And of course, they do have the experience and equipment to deal with this type of snow in short order.)

I don’t think it’s cabin fever – I can hermit up with the best of them.  But something about this is making me a little nuts.  Maybe it’s the feeling that I have no idea whatsoever what I really should be worrying about, and the knowledge that whatever it is, there probably isn’t anything I can do about it anyway.  Case in point:  Didn’t occur to me until halfway through the storm that I could stop worrying about clearing the outside compressor as this house doesn’t have a heat pump.  (In my defense, I spent over 10 years in a house with a heat pump.  Old habits die hard I guess.)

I did run up to the post office today*.  Conditions I drove on/saw were: clear/dry, slushy, unplowed, plowed but not much, wet, and covered in water and near flooding.  Anything that’s not dry by now is going to be a sheet of ice tonight.

Now that we’ve got another 10-20 on the way, it’s time to go with the “be postive” approach…

– The driveway and sidewalks are clear, and even without the snowblower help I could have (and would have) gotten them cleared on my own.
– I’ve dug halfway to the mailbox.  (Considering the berm is over 4 feet high and somewhere between 5-6 feet deep, I’m OK with that measure of progress.)
– I have the physical ability to keep up with the snow when the next round comes.
– I don’t have to be anywhere.
– I have more than enough food, as do the pets.
– I have Coke, Milk, Beer, Wine, Liquor, Champagne and Orange Juice.
– I have power.
– I got through the first storm on my own and I can certainly hack this one if little bro doesn’t come back before it starts.
– I have good neighbors and friends who I can ask for help if I need it.

So, it’s not quite the end of the world.  Still can’t guarantee that I won’t pull a full on nutter before it’s all over, but I’m trying to be positive and consider this an excellent character building experience.  Or at least a story I can torture younguns with in 30 years.

*Car behaved nicely.  I’ll be sticking with short daylight drives until such time as I can get it to the shop with my favorite car problem: the intermittent kind.

Yes, I was kind of hoping I’d get up this morning and it would all be gone.

The road in front of my house is clear and dry, which is awesome, but from reading various comments around about neighborhood plowing, this is not indicative of the entire county.  We are on a Metrobus route, but we’re not a snow emergency route, and in years past I do NOT remember our road being tended to this well after any other snows.  I’ll certainly take it, but with other storms our road has been great and I’ve gotten out to bigger roads that are total shit, so it’s a bit deceptive.

I need to go widen the opening at the end of the driveway a bit, as addition plowing and such has dumped more snow and it’s not quite wide enough to get the car out, or my brother’s car in whenever he gets back.  I also need to figure out how to tackle the mailbox.  The neighborhood trend seems to be to just cut a 2 foot wide path from the street to the box.  I’m still glad I went ahead and put the mail on hold for a few days so I don’t have to kill myself to get that completely done today – I don’t think my back could take it.

Tomorrow’s WSW has gone from 5 inches to 8 inches with “a good likelihood of snow in excess of 10 inches.”  OH HAPPY DAY!  However, I will try my best to be diligent and shovel as it comes down rather than waiting to try to deal with 10 inches of snow at once.  (I was actually doing pretty well keeping up on Friday – until I had the audacity to go to bed.)

According to the NWS, the average annual snowfall for Dulles is 22.3 inches, and National is 16.6.  So far this year they’ve gotten 46.0 and 45.1 inches respectively.  So, at least I know it is not my imagination and this winter just seriously SUCKS.

I think come spring I’m going to burn the hoodie & jeans that have been doing shoveling duty.

There was maybe 1/4  of an inch of snow that fell after my last battle against the snow last night, so I just decided to go ahead and let the sun finish it off today, which worked just fine.  I think I was supposed to go out and help people dig out their cars or something, but I helped people that helped me yesterday – doesn’t that come out even?  I still have to deal with the mailbox, and given we have more snow coming, I just put the mail on hold for a couple days.  There’s no sense in even putting the mail on the truck if no one can get to the mailbox in the first place.  (There is snow up to the bottom of the mailbox, and then snow going into the street several feet from the plowing.)

Next time we have a blizzard, I need a non-lethal projectile weapon that is at least somewhat accurate.  I have some leyland cypress trees in the backyard with a LOT of snow on them and are leaning in a way which is mildly worrisome.  I’ve not been able to come up with any good way to knock the snow off the higher branches, and not much melted off today.  I tried lobbing a tethered water bottle at them, which kind of worked, but my throwing arm ain’t all that.  I really could have used a water balloon slingshot or a heavy duty nerf gun today – something I could have aimed out of the upstairs window.  (How my brother does not own either of these items is beyond me.)

And oh joy, we have another winter storm watch from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon with “potential for 5 or more inches of snow”  YAY!

On top of the trees and the mailbox, my car decided to stall out on me a couple times on Friday.  So, at some point this week I need to get the car to the shop.  Now, I’d just do it tomorrow and grab a cab home, but the the Federal government, County government and County schools are closed, which I think is their way of saying “Stay off the damn roads!”  Perhaps I’ll just wait until little bro gets home and coerce a ride out of him.  (At least there is nowhere I desperately have to be.)

At least through all this nonsense we kept power, which is a VERY GOOD thing.

Though I shouldn’t complain too much, as I have power, which is more than I can say for about 75K people in Northern Virginia.

There are some small indents in the snow where I worked last night.  So at least I can tell where I’ve already shoveled, but it’s a bit disheartening.  I’d say there’s at least another 10 inches out there.  The patio table (which was clear before this all started) now has at least two feet of snow on it.  The snow is almost up to the bottom of the mailbox, but there was already about a foot of snow there before all this ridiculousness started.

My neighbors on both side have snowblowers.  One has remembered the golden rule of “if you have a snowblower and your neighbor doesn’t, going a few feet past your property line when clearing the white crap out is a really decent thing to do.”  (And going all the way to the edge of my driveway is INSANELY nice.) The other apparently has never learned this.  (I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he’s trying to conserve gas and not being a selfish prick who knows damn well I don’t have an extra set of hands here.)  Someone will be getting some thank you cookies or some goodies of some sort.

The dog has attempted to go out once – I told him that he really needed for me to wait and clear a path, but oh no, he knows best.  He reconisdered once he got about a foot outside the back door.  That is the first item on the to-do list as soon as I get some caffeine in me.

The road in front of the house looks GREAT.  Not that anyone can get to it – the snow berm at the end of the driveway is now at least 4 feet high.

Well, time to start round one of the day.  Of course, I have to do the backyard first for the dog, which no one will see except him, and my neighbors will think I am ignoring the front…  They don’t know how lucky they are that I didn’t sleep until noon as it is.  Sometimes I wish I lived in a neighborhood with more slackers like me. :)

I’ve already done two rounds of shoveling, because I have this deluded idea that it will somehow make things easier in the morning.  The way it’s coming down, I’ll be lucky if there are even slight indentations in the driveway and sidewalk when I get up tomorrow.  I keep telling myself that I have shoveled 9 inches of snow, so there will only be 21 inches to go tomorrow instead of 30.  (It’s not helping.)

The plows that have been coming through have already dumped 2+ feet of snow at the end of the driveway.  I don’t even know how I am supposed to get through that without a flamethrower.  (Another reason I should really have a flamethrower.)  There have been two plows that have been looping through the neighborhood all night, and the street is plowed down to the pavement (as evidenced by the sparks flying off the plow blades as they go by) which is great except for the fact that everyone’s driveways are well and duly blocked.

Tomorrow is SO going to suck.

Despite all the reasons I don’t like living in the DC Metro area, I really do like the fact that we have 4 genuine seasons.  While I’d certainly like to have 2 months lopped off of winter and added to fall & spring, it’s not too terrible.

Except for the years when we have more than one snowstorm resulting in more than 10 inches of snow.  I’m good for a handful of snowstorms as long as they result in less than 10 inches of snow.

Personally, I hate winter, but I love snow.  Snow makes the 40-degrees-and-steel-grey-skies-and-rain almost worth it.  But I’m talking about easy/reasonable/decorator snow.  Shoving aside the pre-Christmas two feet of snow (where I was wondering if we could get to the airport, much less PHX), the 6 inches of snowblower powder we had last weekend, or the 5 inches of heavy decorator snow last night were perfectly lovely.  Nothing was terribly screwed up, and I didn’t feel bad for undercharging the kiddo that came by today to shovel my walk & driveway.  (I paid him $5 more than he asked – but would have happily paid him double.)

But it would seem that in the next 36 hours we’ll be embarking on a 12 to 20 inch snowstorm.  10 inches of snow is about the most that I can handle with any measure of grace.  20 inches?  That just reinforces my desire to move to Cuba.

Can we all just think “veer off to the Atlantic” thoughts?  Cause I am in no mood to shovel that much snow.  And it only increases my desire to move to Cuba.  Or Costa Rica.  Or anywhere in Mexico where the locals are willing to assist me in getting my Spanish back up to speed.

And my snowshoveling roommate won’t be around this weekend, (damn you Super Bowl!!) and I can’t be sure that I didn’t scare the crap out of the wonderful snowshoveling kiddo by overpaying him  – he might not come back!

Let’s all think moderate snow accumulations!!!!!!!!!!

First, I’ll be perfectly honest – I thought JD Salinger was already dead. But hey, that’s what you get when you become a recluse.

I read Catcher in the Rye in high school. I didn’t have to read it for a class, though. (It’s weird, it seems most of my English classes didn’t have the traditional reading lists, and every year I’d get, “Didn’t you read this last year?” “No.”  Made college fun, too.)

But, I read it anyway. Personally, I found it to be a victim of the hype. It seriously had zero impact on me.  This could be an indicator that I was a complete unfeeling bitch at the time, but all I remember thinking was, “Your life sucks, we get it.”  I really could not fathom what the big deal was over the whole thing.

Whatever your point may have been JD, it was lost on me.  Sorry about that.

Cause I’m not feeling it just yet. Could just be the sucky weather reports for the next couple days, but it’s just not been a whole lot better than 2009.

The back window in my car has decided that it doesn’t want to work anymore, which would normally be something that I’d simply leave alone for another time, but unfortunately, the window is open about an inch and a half, and as such, actually needs to be tended to. So, I’m looking at being carless for a couple days and that annoys me, too.

There was a 6.1 magnitude aftershock in Haiti today. WTF, Mother Nature, didn’t have enough fun with the first one?

It’s sounding more and more like the health care legislation may be dead, so yay, I can look forward to my premiums continuing to rise unabated, despite my decent health and fabulous looks, and then being cancelled if I ever have to actually use it.

I have taken to turning off the ringer on the phone in my bedroom and leaving my cell phone downstairs at night because I’m done with answering tax question calls from my grandmother at 3AM. (She has a little problem with boundaries and bothering to look at clocks.) I’m pretty sure this makes me a bad person, but I need sleep to effectively be the CEO of “Keep Grandma out of a Nursing Home, Inc.” and she certainly has no problems picking up the phone during the day.

On the upside, the animals are all quite well. Carmen decided to have herself a good old fashioned feline crazy this morning and was chasing me, the dog, invisible bugs, and anything else that caught her eye. However, the Christmas tree is a little worse for the wear for her fun this morning. She is happily sleeping on my lap as I type this, which thrills Moxley to no end, because it means she is not in his crate. He was not having a super awesome time this afternoon as he couldn’t sleep in his crate because Carmen was in it (why he won’t just walk in and sit on her is beyond me) and Lily kept trying to sleep on his tail and feet. (She LOVES him and is also just a little obsessed with his feet.)

So yeah 2010 – I’m just not impressed so far. We’re stuck with each other for 11+ more months, so let’s get it together, shall we?