Snow day

"Snow day" - now there's a notion you don't immediately associate with a blog about Georgia. But last night, and this morning was very reminiscent of my time in New England: The phone call with the automated message about school closings, the "giant voice" suddenly coming on during the middle of our evening church service and announcing a 24 hour base closure, and, this morning, the endless lists of schools, businesses, and government buildings that would be closed for the day.

Of course, none of this pertained to my work, as the university I work at is a good 90 miles away from our quaint little town. And according to the fairly morbid weather forecasts, that part of the state was not going be hit as badly as where we live. So in spite of the warnings about ice, freezing rain, and sleet throughout the day, until early this morning, this Calamity Jane was planning on just driving to work, snow and ice be damned. Obviously, I didn't drive through some of the worst German blizzards to shy away from a little freezing rain. And I was pretty certain my pride would never recover if I would refuse to drive in a little snow. As I pointed out to the people at church last night,  I didn't get stuck in a 5-hour traffic jam on the autobahn while the snow piled up around me and I had to use the bathroom with a steadily increasing urgency to suddenly freak out, like the rest of the state, at the thought of a little snow.

It's amazing, really, how often I have to eat my words. And it's even more amazing how often I write about this on my blog too. Anyway, I think we all know what happened next.

As I got up this morning, observed the two-inch long icicles hanging off our back porch, the three inches of ice on our driveway, walkway, and road, noticed the freezing rain still coming down, and heard the Georgia Department of Transportation announce on the local news that they were advising against leaving the house today, I realized this ice storm might possibly be too much for even my ballsiness. After a quick trip down the driveway, where I realized that our mailbox was frozen shut with about three inches of ice, our driveway was slicker than an otter's back, and the road was not much better, I decided that even though the university had only announced a delayed opening, Dr. Dixiechick was canceling classes today.

Of course this counts as a total disgrace. I have never canceled classes in the past ten years. Ever. Deaths, funerals, moves, drama, I've always kept on teaching. But the thought of Georgia roads covered in two inches of ice combined with a painful awareness of the inability of Georgia drivers to handle something as complicated as merging, let alone Oh-sweet-Mary-mother-of-God-on-a-stick slippery roads, was enough to make me renege on my principles.

On the upside, I got to see one of our neighbors take out his old pick up truck, and give the neighborhood kids the ride of their life as he raced through our circle, slipping and sliding on all the ice. Only in Georgia.