Where I've Been This Week

In case you wonder where I've been since last Tuesday, I've been (ready?) snowed under. That's right. My small town in southern Louisiana picked up eight (count 'em, eight) inches of the fluffiest white snow you can imagine. My twenty-something neighbors made snow angels, threw snow balls, and built a snowman, complete with jaunty Louisiana bluesman hat. A small herd of children marauded excitedly from yard to yard. And the power, needless to say, went out for multiple days for the second time in three months. Thanks to an under-sized emergency transformer thrown up and never replaced after Hurricane Gustav, I went 72 hours before I got my power back, even though everybody else on my road got theirs back in 48. Sigh.

Just imagine trying to sleep under three cotton blankets and a comforter while wearing jeans, a turtleneck sweater, a Brooklyn Industries hooded sweatshirt (zipped up), two pairs of socks, wooly slippers, and gloves. In pitch darkness. Only crawling out of said cave to sit on a toilet seat made of ice.

To make matters worse, the roads for that first day were so icy (and Louisiana drivers so inexperienced) that trucks were in ditches all over the place and cars were bouncing off the highway abutments like popping corn.

And it was finals week going into Commencement on Saturday, so on top of everything else, students were panicking and teachers were walking the halls in the clothes they slept in, looking seriously rough and having trouble maintaining focus.

I ultimately wound up spending two nights at a friend's place, did almost NO work, and lost yet another freezerful of food, bringing my total loss to about $150 worth of food in three months. The up-side was that it was so cold in my house that the soy milk, yogurt, meat and cheese in the fridge didn't spoil. Yeah.

This morning I came across the following YouTube video, so now I know who to blame for this um...interesting evolution. (I originally attributed it to the way we've screwed up the ecological balance, but who knew?)

To the little girl in Baton Rouge who wrote Santa asking for snow, I'd like to say, "Okay, now. That's enough." But just in case she really does have some kind of special line to the old guy in the red suit, I'd like to suggest that she ask for world peace next. Snow is pretty, but peace would be glorious. Wouldn't it?

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The photo above was captured by Vonna Varnado, one of my students and a multi-talented artist to watch.