Typed up while wearing super-cute fingerless gloves

I'm feeling particularly Slytherin-like today (and if you don't understand what that means, I don't think we can be friends anymore).  And it's not just because of these:

Although that *is* part of it.  I mean, maybe a true Slytherin wouldn't have the little flowers, but I like to think that at least one would appreciate the dichotomy of liking ambition AND pretty flowers.  And you can't really tell from the picture, but my toenails are painted green, too.  I should be wearing a green shirt, too.  But I ordered this baby from ThinkGeek and it came in the mail today:

It's only the most amazingly epic shirt EVER.  I was so tempted to also purchase the Tim the Enchanter hat and evil bunny slippers, but I refrained - for now.  No promises that they won't be winging their way toward me at some point in the future.

It's been a lazy couple of days at Chez Erin because we got some snow, and as I mentioned before, snow means staying at home if at all possible.  It was very pretty snow, though:

I hesitate to complain about our paltry four inches when I know that New England is getting hammered by feet upon feet of the stuff.  But other parts of the country are far better prepared for it than we are.  Hell, we don't even have snow plows.  We have a couple of Bubbas that slap makeshift plows onto the fronts of their pickups.

So it's not the best of situations.  But it usually grants us at least a couple of days off of work or school, which is always appreciated.  Particularly those of us in college who are not required to physically make up snow days.  Sure, we're responsible for the work missed, but at least they can't add days to the end of the semester.

We're at SnowCon One, Folks

I live in a town that is nestled high in the 'mountains' of Arkansas.  While this means that driving in and out of here is generally about as easy as directing water buffalo ballet, it does not translate to an increase in wintery precipitation.  So when Dashing Young Weatherman predicts snow, it's pretty much the same kind of general chaos as in the rest of the south, only a tiny bit scarier for two main reasons:

1.  As we live up in 'mountainous' terrain, there are lots and lots of hills that turn cars into self-propelling automotive death sleds.

2.  When the power lines were run into the county, some genius decided that we only needed one set of main transmission lines, which come in over a river and are anchored on the side of a cliff, making it only accessible by helicopter.

The particular cliff is heavily wooded, which makes the chances of power disruption by falling snowy branch abnormally high.  And when that line is damaged, the entire county loses power for however long it takes for the power people to scrounge up a helicopter and dangle someone off the cliff over the river to fix it.  This usually takes about a week, which I'm sure you can imagine is an incredibly long time when you're freezing your tootsies off.

My only consolation in all of this is that the house I live in has wood heat, so while I might die from Internet withdrawal, I won't actually freeze to death.  Me and the dogs are going to hole up with a stack of blankets, a stack of books, and a stack of dog biscuits.  See you on the flip side.