Cleolinda everywhere

I'm going to go ahead and get the linkspam out now--I'll post about Cloverfield when I get back from the movie tonight. I really don't think we'll have power or connectivity issues until tomorrow, if at all, but I find that preparing for things tends to prevent them, in a superstitious way.

For y'all wondering why a prediction of five inches of snow would send Birmingham into a (gleeful) panic, here's a few things that I don't think that Northerners, Westerners, or non-Americans are aware of: for one, winters in the South can hold steady at 40 or 50 degrees Fahrenheit, with a few dips down to the 30s or below, or perhaps none at all. We've been having a pattern this winter of an extremely cold week (19-20 degrees) followed by a week in the 60s and 70s, then a couple of days of rain and thunder. Then the cycle starts back up again. One year I got a faint dusting of snow on my birthday, and that was big news. Schools have actually been closed for a 60% chance of flurries. New anchors still refer to WINTER STORM '93 in ominous tones. If we have snowplows and de-icers, I sure as hell haven't ever seen them, although my mother reports that trucks full of sand are stationed in the streets around UAB Hospital--because people will need to get in no matter what.

We don't know how to drive on ice or snow because we don't get any. Well, sometimes we get a little ice, but life pretty much shuts down because we don't know how to drive on it. The 5:00 news actually had a helpful checklist of driving tips this afternoon ("Drive slowly"). Furthermore, Birmingham is wonderfully hilly--I don't want to say "mountainous," precisely, but we do have the Red Mountain Expressway. We have tons of bridges and valleys and twists and curves. And a city full of people who don't know how to drive on ice. Plus, we're a very treesome area; even downtown has trees along the streets (it's very attractive). So you have all these ancient trees piled up with snow. And then dead branches break off. And they fall on your roof and your car and your power lines. And then you have exposed power lines lying around in the street. Actually, in the old neighborhood where I grew up, you'd see entire trees fall over during a big snow (say, six inches). I remember when our street was closed off because a giant tree was lying across the road. Another tree actually fell over so completely that its roots were completely aboveground, like giant woody tentacles. And this was a very middle-class, close-to-[suburban]-downtown, American Beauty-type neighborhood. We're not talking farms here.

I think we'll be totally fine. Mom did the weekly grocery shopping this morning before she went to work, just to be safe. Sister Girl opens Panera tomorrow at crack-thirty, but we're hoping they'll close the store. I don't think we've actually had significant snow at this house (we moved here in 2001), so I don't know if the power lines are more reliable here; it's equally woodsy, though. We've never had trouble with pipes, though, so we have all the hot baths we want, and a gas-log fire. No gas range--my mother's been wanting one, like we had at the old house (she had it put in because--wait for it--branches were always taking down the power lines), but other than that, we've got batteries and candles and lighters and lanterns and what-have-you. My internet connection is finicky, though, so I don't know that I'll have that, even if we have power. We'll see. I'm curious to see how it shakes out, but I'm not terribly concerned. It's usually more inconvenient and hilarious, and maybe a little tiresome than anything.

( Linkspam )