SNOW DAY ! ! ! ! !

FINALLY, we have a snow day. And not a moment too soon. We
were all ready for school, boys' hair slicked down, lights off, lunches
packed, going out the door when I got THE CALL. For anybody
not hep to the teacher lingo, we have an emergency phone tree by
which teachers are notified if school is called off. That doesn't keep
us from watching the news for it, though. If you are low down on
phone tree, you might see it on TV first. Lucky that I am #2 on my
branch, because we were out of there in 30 seconds.

But there was a problem. #2 son can not go back to school until
tomorrow because of his pneumonia, and was counting on a day
with Grandma all to himself. He leaned his head down on the
kitchen table and cried like his heart was breaking. #1, never the
diplomat, taunted: "Ha ha! Now you don't get to go to Grandma's!"
Sometimes that boy needs a whoopin'. I called my Hillbilly Mama
to tell her we had no school. She felt sorry for #2. She had been
shopping yesterday to buy him donuts, and milk for his cereal,
and macaroni & cheese. She said she would come out later, if
the snow cleared up. I told him Grandma wanted to talk to him.
He held the phone out about a foot from his ear. That's how he
talks on it. Go figure! His shirt front was soaked from the tears.
He was still sad. He buried his head in the corner of the couch
cushions. I took the phone into the bathroom to talk in secret.
I asked her if I could go ahead and bring him to town. We were
all ready anyway. She said OK. Then #1 hooted, "I'm coming
too!" I have warned that boy about listening in on people's
phone calls. I told him no, for listening in.

Then I told #2 the news, and he perked right up. He gathered
up his bag of 3 GameBoys, his pouch full of games, two bears,
5 DVDs, a video, and a deck of Yu-Gi-Oh cards. The boy is
feeling better. He cut a deal with #1. #1 called it his plea bargain.
The conditions: A) #2 son controls the TV all day. B) #2 son
controls Grandma all day. C) #1 is not allowed to say anything
bad to #2. The deal was approved by #1, so I let him go.

We took off for town. The kids that live out here had just been
picked up by the bus. Poor suckers! There was a car stuck
half-way up the first hill on our county road. We took an alternate
route. The roads were not good. You know, because we were
only having a fast-hitting storm with dry flurries, just a dusting.
When I returned home at 8:40, I had 4 inches.

All the roads I took were covered. We entered the school
district where my my HMama lives, and my Hillbilly Sister teaches,
and were almost hit by a school bus. She had stopped to pick up
student, and got a wheel off the edge of the pavement. She pulled
in the stop sign, so the car in front of me and I started past. I
thought she was waiting until we got by, but no, she was spinning
her wheels. She had the front wheels turned too sharp. She gassed
that bus, and it shot over into my lane. I swerved right onto the
shoulder. But this is a Missouri state highway, people. The shoulder
is about 4 inches of gravelly chipped blacktop from the other layers
that were the highway in previous years. Whew! That got my heart
pumping. We stopped on the road by HMama's place, because
her driveway is kind of steep. I dumped off my spawn and headed
home by way of Sonic.

This snow is slick as snot. Hope you didn't have body fluid issues.
The snow is so wet, you could pack it into ice balls. Mushy, slick
stuff that is very slippery. Even I, the large SUV driver, spun at
stop signs. Mabel, my teaching buddy without a blog, you would
not even have been safe catching the school bus this morning. That's
what Mabel does when it snows. She rides the bus to school. Don't
worry about Mabel. It's a long bus, not a short bus.

I had several moments where I wondered WHAT WAS I
THINKING when I drove to town. This is the worst I've been
out in for a while. You people with cute little cars, and those little
toy pickup trucks need to stay off the freakin' roads in this stuff,
unless you're taking your baby with pneumonia to his grandma's
house, or you're going to be fired if you don't show up. Because
you have no traction. Get out of my way. I feel fairly safe in my
large SUV. I know how to drive on snow. It's the screaming
yellow Hummer that slid up beside me in the oncoming traffic
lane while I was stopped at a stop sign that bothered me. He
should have slowed down sooner. I saw him coming in my
mirror, and the next thing I knew, there he was beside me. I
don't know if it was an evasive tactic, or that's just where he
landed when he hit the brakes. Most people were more cautious.

I pulled into the left turn lane to get to Sonic for my Cherry Diet
Coke, and I thought, "This snow blowing is very disorienting.
I feel like I'm moving, yet I'm stopped." Um. I was stopped,
but my large SUV slid down the hill a bit, so I was moving.

These weather forecasters are starting to piss me off. For any
of you who watch St. Louis local news stations, let me ask you:
Have they been right ONCE this winter as far as predicting a
snow storm? I don't think so. I don't mean those days and days
of "It's going to be dry and sunny." I mean, when there was an
actual storm coming, were they accurate? NO! Either it's a big
panic, then we get nothing, or it's nothing, and we get hit hard.

And another thing about the news...What is up with KSDK
Channel 5 and their new set? I hate it. Too busy. Anybody else
have an opinion? Colleen, Linda, Mabel? And what about that
Erin O'Neill? Who dresses that woman? I can not believe she
is on TV in some of those get-ups. It looks like she dresses
in the dark, or out of a lost-and-found box. I have no issues
with her reporting, I just can't stand to look at her frumpy
ensembles. Unlike weathercaster Cindy Preszler, whose clothes
are OK, but whose forecasting I can't stand. You're off the hook,
Mabel, because I know you watch Channel 2 News. They dress
better on that station, though Channel 5's Art Holliday looks very
dapper 99% of the time. His partner Jennifer Blome has some
fashion issues sometimes, but their screen chemistry excuses her.

And now I have digressed into reviewing the local news programs,
so I apparently have no more to say.

Gosh, another post about nothing. WHO KNEW?