A slothful weekend followed quickly by “snow”...

This weekend I went absolutely nowhere. I was really tired from the work week and felt much like a wrung-out rag (especially after pulling 4 hours of last-minute, "Wait, you need this right now? You know I’m supposed to leave in about an hour, right? Um...okay," OT on Friday evening). I realized I probably didn't have the energy left to go home, clean up, change and drive back out to be social after returning to the apartment from work, walking directly to my room, shutting the door behind me, dropping my messenger bag & purse, and just sort of collapsing face-first on my bed, still ensconced in gloves, scarf & overcoat. After 10 minutes of remaining this way (turning my head a little to the left so I could breathe, of course), I realized I was *far* more comfortable than I should be, opted to just stay home & multi-texted as much to people. The decision ended up lasting the entire weekend and I caught up on all the sleep I’d missed the past couple weeks while being a complete pupa. Go me. :)

So now it’s Monday, I’m pretty well-rested, and my brain no longer feels like something that’s either mush, charred, or husk-like. A sizeable number of the staff who usually interrupts me all day long is to be out for at least part of this week, and all together this means I might actually be able to knock some older tasks off my “To Do” list and get things back in order as I prefer them. All I could really ask to make my day a little better would be more snow.

See, it’s all ready the end of January and I wanted more snow by now. Everyone else who likes warm/hot weather ends up having up to 9 months a year in this area where if it’s not downright hot-as-all-Hell and muggy to boot, it’s at least not cold in the slightest. For people like me that actually *dig* colder weather and even some snow, we're gettin’ gypped. Fall and winter are both supposed to be the colder months of the year, darn it, even in this area. Not balmy, not 70-something when it’s freakin’ October/November. It is supposed to be either chilly or cold, NOT WARM, and that's only really happened in the past few weeks or so.

The weather's being a teasing little minx, too. She knows I want it to snow so badly I can taste snowflakes on my tongue and apparently she doesn't yet want to give it up, but she likes getting me excited about it. So, every so often, she flirts a little bit of her white, wintery petticoat at me, bats her eyelashes for a second, then hides it away again. Just like any other situation where one’s being teased without any idea of when satisfaction may ever occur, it’s beginning to go beyond tantalizing and fun and is now stepping into the realm of annoying. Do not be surprised if you find me stopped in an empty parking lot at some point in the near future, car still running behind me as I stand on the blacktop shaking my fist at the sky yelling, "Damn it, woman! GIVE ME A SLICE!"

It's not that we haven't had *any* snow, y'see, it's just that what we've had has only been on the ground for about 2.5 seconds before evaporating again. It started January 8. I was all kinds of excited about the sudden deluge of fat flurries that practically dumped outside my office window, IMing everyone I knew online around 9:30 that morning. No one else saw it due to some freak happenstance that apparently caused it to snow only in Sterling & Chantilly that day, so I left the office on my lunch break (I had to retrieve my lunch from home anyway) & took pictures for proof.

I was able to leave the office & head back to the apartment after 12p. It was snowing heavily enough that it was collecting on the all ready existing black ice in some patches & making things damned difficult to navigate. I even slid a couple times doing 15 mph.

At 12:45p, Sterling looked like this:


Ten minutes down the road, near 28, it had quieted down to this:


At 1:05p, down 28 just a bit, the weather was, rather suddenly, practically non-existent:


And by 1:15p, back in Chantilly, there was absolutely nothing:


And, of course, considering how much the little tart likes to flirt with me, Mother Nature decided to pull this crap all the Hell over again today. Did anyone else see it? Noooo, of course not. However this morning, upon leaving the apartment, I saw flurries falling again. (Great day to wear heels when the weather report said only a 20% chance of precipitation. ::chuckles::) By 10a from my office window, I could see this:



And now what do we have? Nothin'. Absolutely nothing.

Damn it Mother Nature, you trifling little temptress! GIVE IT UP ALL READY!

That is quite enough for now. More later.

~E.