More Snow!

It seems that people in Portland don't have any more of a clue about driving in snow than they do in Atlanta! A heavy dump of snow began to fall early Thursday morning here in Corvallis, moving north to Portland by late afternoon. Since they didn't wake up to snow like we did, lots of Portlanders were at work when it began to snow. Hysteria ensued: abandoned cars, accidents that backed up the freeway for hours. There were photos in the Oregonian newspaper of pedestrians pushing cars up a notorious hill in Portland--the street was jammed on both sides with cars, people trying to get home, I hope.

Out here in the sticks, they don't plow the main roads; you can forget about seeing the neighborhood streets cleared. But with more snow forecast for the next few days, I took advantage of a lull in the snowfall on Thursday afternoon and spent one and half hours shoveling out my little car and my driveway. We had around 8" from the first storm; another 4 to 8 inches is expected from this second storm (it's snowing now as I finish up this post). I figured that I would rather shovel 8 inches then another 6 inches than 14 inches all at once!

Once I had cleared my driveway, I made a slightly white-knuckled trip to the grocery store for emergency rations: cheese, eggs, a box of brownie mix (a study break with a nice warm brownie and a cup of tea--who wouldn't like that?), and a box of wine (for when I am no longer able to cram one more factoid into my brain at the end of the day). I already had veg, chicken, rice, plenty of dog food and sundries on hand, and I made a pot of beans yesterday--we are set for quite a few days. The propane tank was fortuitously refilled on Wednesday--it's our main source of heat.

The snow is getting quite deep. I should say that I lived in Salt Lake City for a number of years so it isn't the snow itself that is amazing. It's that it doesn't snow all that often in this part of the Pacific Northwest. Nobody is prepared. All that shoveling I did? Used a regular old square-head shovel. I scrape ice off my car windows with a plastic spatula (been doing a lot of that lately with all the freezing fog). I've been studying all day and heard only one car go by--the UPS truck!

The snow is now up to Azza's belly. Since Mimi can easily walk under her, Mimi has completely given up on navigating anything but the snow-free zone under the house eaves. Harry was a bit more adventurous last night, crossing the yard to check the fence perimeter, but now that the snow level is pretty much up to his head, he's content to stick to the eaves too.

Mimi and Harry under the house eaves. Taken at 2pm today. The snow is already too deep for them to move around easily. And it continues to snow steadily!

Azza loves the snow. She bounds around like a crazed beast. She asks to go outside constantly and stays out there for 20-30 minutes. It's well below freezing. I don't know how she stands it. She has no hair on her underside!

Campus was of course closed yesterday and today. If the temperature doesn't rise over the weekend, I don't see how they can open on Monday either since nothing is plowed. Still, snow days don't mean free days for me. Since I'm not in class being buried in new information, I'm catching up on and solidifying what we've been buried in up to this point. Spent most of yesterday on cat muscles and French. Today it's been the gamma loop and sensory neuron pathways in the cerebellum. In between, I'm trying to cram in at least one hour per day devoted to working through GRE practice problems; I'm scheduled to take the exam in March.