Lauren Flax » snow

Icicle Races II

laurenflax — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 04:37:38 +0000

Today was a big day for icicles.

February 13. Late morning.

February 13. Late afternoon.

The ice curtain.

This one on the northwest corner runs almost the entire height of the house.

Icicle Races

laurenflax — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 03:54:00 +0000

One of the more interesting events around this crazy snow is the icicle propagation we have here in Baltimore. On more buildings that I can count, I have seen icicles inches thick, hanging halfway down to the street.

This is my humble contribution, the growth of an icicle on my back porch. After the first pic, watch the shrub in the background for a frame of reference.

February 6. Late afternoon.

February 9. Early evening.

February 11. Late morning.

February 12. Late morning.

February 12. Early evening.

Apocalypse sNow III: OMG WTF SNO

laurenflax — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:38:02 +0000

It is eleven-thirty at night, twenty-seven degrees outside and doing whatever it is that snow does when it is coming down in large, crazy amounts. Pouring down snow? Snow doesn’t really pour. It is not driving, either, not yet anyway. Fine, then the snow is gently, yet persistently falling the fuck down. It is dumping snow. The weather is taking a great big giant flaky white dump all over the mid-Atlantic again, and I am ready to go out and start shoveling NOW just to get outside. I feel like I could run a 5K right now if the roads were clear.

I am starting to get a little… SNOW… M A D N E S S.

Oh, fine. Snow madness, space madness, same thing.

Deep breaths. I am living through weather history and it is exciting. Right. Exciting. Maybe tomorrow I will turn the heat in the house up to eighty-five and sit around in a tank top and shorts.

Apocaplypse sNow II: Activity

laurenflax — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:33:19 +0000

Baltimore has been snowed in for three days, and with another big storm on the way tomorrow night, there has been lots of chatter about an inevitable spike in the birth rate nine months from now. That kind of thing sounded a little saucy and romantic to me when I was younger, but as an adult in a long term relationship, I have a much better grasp of what is really going on. Romance? Right. After about forty-eight hours sequestered together, an activity that offers any amount of time during which I stop complaining and Scott stops asking me questions is looked upon favorably in this household. I imagine we are not the only ones.

Apocalypse sNow II: The Morning After

laurenflax — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:39:33 +0000

Some of the roads in our neighborhood still have not been plowed, and even one major road is still covered, except for the spots with southern exposure.

From the back porch, just after the snow stopped. That is the compost bin in the center of the picture, which is 34" tall.

I think we got one good pass from a snowplow this morning. There is just enough room for one car to get through.

It took about three hours to dig out the driveway and my car, and that was with help from the bright afternoon sun. Owies.

8" dog + 28" snow + prey drive = this

Apocalypse sNow II: First Looks

laurenflax — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:27:34 +0000

The official total (so far) from the neighbor’s yard is twenty-four inches, and still going.

I will not be driving anywhere any time soon.

That's right, it's a picture of my dog pooping. Classy! Snow deeper than three or four inches requires digging out a poopin' patch for the wee little wieners.

Is it Spring yet?

Apocalypse sNow II

laurenflax — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:30:10 +0000

2:05 am, from iPhone

I have never seen the sky look quite like this -not even in Minnesota- and it may be part of the reason why I am wide awake at 1:30 am (that and the beerownies). The sky is so thick with snow that it is silver white, as light as dusk or early dawn. The view from nearly every side of the house is monochrome, except for the occasional glowing porch light. There is no beyond, behind the houses across the street there is a simple gray canvas across which are inky black streaks of oak trunks and branches.

All of the windows in the living room are open and the lights are off so I can take in this strange light, and the silence. No planes flying over head, no traffic in the distance, just the movement of heavy winter branches and the muffled clank of a neighbor’s windchime. The snowflakes are so small and moving so fast that from the window they are invisible, appearing only en masse as the gray canvas across the street.

As much as I crave a summer day, I am happy not to miss this storm. Even if we don’t have the predicted twenty to thirty-six inches of snow when it is over, I have the feeling that this is something unique, an opportunity to experience the world in a new and singularly dramatic way.

Apocalypse sNow

laurenflax — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:11:57 +0000

That would be just about 19 inches, and this was after a few inches had already melted away.

From the sound of things on Friday, our region was to be struck by one to two feet of apocalypse, but it turned out we got one to two feet of snow, instead. My classes were tiny on Friday and the traffic was ridiculous as people scrambled to buy their (everybody, now) bread, milk, and toilet paper. What is wrong with people? God forbid anyone should go twenty-four hours without everything they want immediately available. And, if you don’t have more than a two day supply of toilet paper in your house, you are one unwashed hand in the holiday party crudite away from disaster.

On that note, I was confused by the crazy long lines at the gas stations. If we get that big of a storm, you’re not going anywhere, people. Settle down.

The other side of the car was covered halfway up the doors. Catch my drift?

So, it snowed. I used to love snow, but then, I also used to have a garage. My great accomplishment during this storm, other than wasting an entire day laying in bed surfing the web and maybe moping, was remembering to get my ice scraper out of the car BEFORE the storm, thus avoiding an avalanche into the front seat this morning. It has taken me only 8-10 garage free winters to figure this out.

Solstice in T-minus fifteen hours.

Snow Day

laurenflax — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:33:53 +0000

This is one of my favorite sensations: sitting in my house in the morning, laundry spinning in the dryer, snow falling. Even when I can’t see the snow, there is this snow awareness; the difference in the light and the movement of sound around the snowflakes. No slamming doors, just muffled openings and closings. And, if I listen very carefully, the sound of the snow itself.