measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The world needs to shut down again-- Boston's going to get snow WAAF's morning show this morning summed everything up for me. They had the air raid siren going off and messages about Mass panic (pun intended) over the snowfall we're supposed to get sometime this afternoon through tomorrow morning. They joked about how we needed to raid all of the supermarkets to get our supply of water and Dinty Moore Beef Stew cans because of the horrible thing that's going to happen: Oh God. It's going to snow. The world will collapse under its weight, and we will all freeze to death because it will be the Storm of the New Century That's Only About Two Years Old. (or three, if you go by the 2000 method for the millennium) *groan* Really, folks. It's fucking snow. And we live in fucking New England. This is the place where the songs like "Over the River and Through The Woods" started, isn't it? Where they talk about snow on Thanksgiving? It snows here. This is not news. We're in the northern USA, for crying out loud. If you want warm weather, head to Florida or something. Of course, at the same time as I'm rolling my eyes, I get the response of "But you came from Montana, Melissa. It's different here! We're not built to handle snow like this!!" HUH?!? For one, Massachusetts gets more snow every year on average than I ever saw in Billings. And they PLOW here. They don't at home. Over the course of the winter, particularly in January and February, ice ruts develop on the road. If the rut doesn't have access to turn a particular direction, you don't turn. You keep going. And there's this weird stuff called salt that they put on the roads to MELT the snow, which they don't do at home (partially because it wouldn't help anything since it would refreeze). Montanans generally slow down and take their time on the roads if they're slippery or snowy, rather than act like assholes cutting in front of people on the highways. People bundle up before heading outside because it's, well, cold. It's about zero degrees outside without windchill? Bundle those kids up and send them to school. (snow days? Feh!) Montanans also understand that the time between November and March is open game for snowfall. It's expected that it's going to snow at least a few times, and it's also going to be cold. It generally goes along with the concepts of winter. Granted, the wind here is much more painful than it is there, due to the humidity here and the proximity to the ocean. It simply cuts through coats. And yes, it's sloppy due to the slush that forms on the roads. Particularly in Boston, where lakes of slush and water form around every corner, making it nearly impossible to walk without getting soaked at one point or another. (I feel for Strawberry, who has to deal with Boston Wind Tunnel effect. It wasn't fun when I was in college, either. But I have to laugh at how worked up people get about these things. I just don't get it. "Oh my god. We're supposed to get SIX INCHES!" my co-worker says. A native Massachusetts girl, by the way. I'd understand this from my co-worker who's from Texas (complete with drawl). But this girl grew up in Worcester. And she went to college in BUFFALO. Really, folks. I can see any person from Buffalo cracking up about six inches of snow. Borrowing from Monty Python, "Tis but a scratch." I've heard some of my co-workers comment on how this paranoia stems from the Blizzard of 1978, using that as an excuse. But considering that many of my co-workers are within a few years of my age, which means they were either toddlers or young children at that time, I don't think they remember the Blizzard of 1978, and if they did, they saw the huge snowfall as "Ooooh... snowmen heaven!" rather than something god-awful. If this were going to be something on the scale of that storm, I'd understand it. But we're not talking several feet of snow here. We're talking six inches. Sound off the air raid. I think I just saw a snowflake. The bombing of Massachusetts is about to begin... 11:30 a.m. - 4 December 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||