[Off-topic comment deleted. Put that comment where it belongs. -editor.]

This seems like a stupid question, but none of the local news sites seem to be stating the answer: since there's snow on the ground now, and more snow forecast for midweek, and temps are forecast to stay below freezing through next weekend, does that mean we should expect snow and ice on the ground all week? And as snow turns to ice, wouldn't that mean days and days of school closures and other inclement weather disruptions?

Or will the various state and local transportation departments just barrage the city with not-salt till all the snow goes away?

Maybe they're saying this on television and I don't know the answer because I'm not watching TV.

James, as I recall, there was a year in the early 1970s when school (at least in rural districts) was closed 5 days in the last few weeks before Christmas vacation due to snow and ice. I'm not sure that result was predicted when the storm first blew in.

Ok, KPTV's Mark Nelson says we'll have snow on the ground for a week.

As soon as the snow stops falling it will slowly start to disappear as it sublimates (goes directly from a solid to a gas).

If we have substantial snowfall we'll still have snow on the ground for awhile, but in places that only have an inch or two it's likely that it will be gone in a day or two, no matter the temperature.

TJ, I plan to inhale the sublimated snow.

Just a reminder, today is election day.

My prediction: Barack Obama will win.

While reading news of my relations on the rez whose blizzards and freeze started before the federal and state driven heating assistance programs kicked in, I found something that was good news.

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20081215/NEWS01/812150301/1002/rss

So, Carla, is your garden also blue? Don't you try to hide the red flowers, lest someone misunderstand? Very nice pictures.

Carla, thanks for the lovely pictures. Brightened up my day! We've been watching the birds and put out nectar for hummingbirds, who came in droves.

Reed bulldozed my (and 200 other peoples') garden with 150 year old heirloom flowers and near prototype Blue Lake green beans and Mt. Hood hops. I wonder where all the rare species of birds that used to eat the seeds in this weather are today? Well, at least the preppies don't have to cross the street anymore, on their way to learn how to be social progressives in a sustainable system!

Carla, the pictures are really beautiful! But then, I've always loved your photos of flowers. I love snow; it's the most beautiful gift nature gives us (bless her heart!). But then, inevitably, it starts to melt, gets slushy.... I guess there's a price to pay for everything.

I spent three winters in Moscow, and we often had good, hard snow that lasted a long time. Nice, until it got a fine dusting of coal powder from the crap floating around in the air.

A bit off the topic, perhaps, but maybe not, since, when we work from home in the snow we are sometimes not nearly as productive and focused as we should be... so out of curiousity as to the oevres and other forums or endeavours of different ones of you as well as to run that cursory self- and family-check we all run periodically, I entered some of your screen names and the names of a few of you whom I know - Jack Bog, Ray Duray, TorridJoe, Chisholm, Civiletti, our starpower women - Carla, Joanne, my dead brother etc... I was amazed at the glowing trails of notoriety following my masseuse brother, relieved at the lack of excitement around my name... and 1. something new must have happened to Google, for the threads were expansive and webby as never before; 2. I was astounded to find a good number of you all posting intensely in other places besides here. In some venues, the same people still talking to each other and quoting each other from here or elsewhere. I kid you not, I sat back suddenly in my chair and shook my head in wonder. I know how many hours I have lost when fully engaged just HERE, doing it the right way with some thought, some research, checking myself, the requisite pissing matches and rigid betrayals of my own vaunted progressivism (did I ever vaunt such? I was lying)... and carrying on my responsibilities outside of that.

Knowing the daylight schedules of some, I had to wonder HOW do you get anything done besides chasing each other around these different blogs? And when you compound the amount of non-blog cruising and commentary threading out from each name with these few progressive blogs as the nexus of intensity.... how DO you get any living or paying work done? :).... Ack! Oy! On the bright side, I was able to add a few interesting side pockets to my awareness, but, frankly, who's got the time? :)...

And then the truth, a bleak understanding came to me: despite my respectable IQ, my concentration is still shot, my ability to remember and cohere is still fragmented and might never really come back... my dedication to competent writing and honest research have waned. And so it is, you all can blog and cruise and comment and get around PLUS have fabulous gardens, nights at the symphony and lectures, do your house parties and political events, cable access, script writing, jetting off to conventions, stacking wood and weeks off here and there to neat vacation spots all cozied in together... agh! ... BECAUSE YER SMARTER THAN ME WITH YER DEFRAGGED BRAINS! This is what comes of looking anywhere besides right at the bullseye and earning your shekels on a snow day.

Unpleasant epiphany.

Oy vey, oy vey.

Heheheheheheh.

From the hill - Bex

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