dense water

Just last week I was talking to my big sister about snow here. She asked if it did, and I explained the rare confluence of conditions in which it does. Being surrounded by sea water, as we are, it's hard to make snow come out of the sky. The temp just doesn't like to go much below 40 around these parts.

She got on a plane outta here, and hours later the confluence of events occurred.

The city is giddy with the excitement of the chaos. King5 has their 'Weather Debacle 2006' now, which makes for a nice change in coverage from whether strippers should be kept four feet from customers, and the fascinating debate over exit-testing for high schoolers. It's a beautiful place we live, but we've got a really small-town brain when it comes to news. (Jeff Renner, local weather man much beloved by blue-haired ladies, closed his segment last night by reminding everyone that whenever we get snowy streets, we get tragic stories of kids sledding into parked cars. "So get a helmet on those noggins, kids!" He really said that.)

The snow came, and if you watched Monday Night Football you saw the nice part. Traffic around the city went all to hell that night. Yesterday it warmed up just enough to melt some, then it froze hard starting about 5 pm. And this city is all about steep hills. I complain about the inadequacy of the driving populace, how snow seems to lop 25% off the general IQ, but it really is a rotten place to try to move around when we get these layers of ice and snow.

Red went out into the 25 degree back yard this morning, clearing out the crows. She snuffled in the snow for a couple of minutes, which seems to trigger her other end, did her thing, then shot back into the house with such puppy glee I didn't know what to do with her. She raced around the house, and tried repeatedly to get me to pretend I was a grizzly and fight with her. The cold does that to her. (She's snoring on the office couch now.)

I've got lots of work to do, but the studio is simply too cold to do it in. The last stop for a lot of my work is at the spray lacquer booth. But under about 45 degrees the stuff hits steel and turns into big dribbles that are not what the artist intended. We're moving from this studio to another at the end of this week. The next one is heated. For now, customers will wait.

So... I will bid work today; work in my living room to put the finishing touches on a table I will deliver tomorrow; I will dress up, drive downtown, and attend a committee meeting for the Museum of Flight; and I will do some things that I avoid when I can. But it's cold, and the house is the place to be. Filing of paperwork will get done.

And I will watch the news at the end of the day for coverage of Weather Debacle 06. Because misery loves viewers.