WINTER STORM

I wouldn't have had to hear Matt Belanger announce it on the 5:00 am weather report this morning. The "frozen sky" at twilight that gave a frosted look to the emanations from the street lights would have been an obvious clue. The email cancellations of Saturday events, of course, were more direct.  The shoppers heading for the milk and bread at Darrenkamp's Market were "icing" on the cake.

A winter storm is on the way.

If it arrives on schedule, it will begin as freezing rain later tonight (Friday), turning to snow in the early hours of the morning, and become a major snow event just when most people would be heading out to a Saturday morning breakfast at Bob Evans or Silver Spring Family Restaurant. 

The cautious and those of the senior citizen persuasion will just stay at home and inside, wondering whether it will be "safe" to go to church in the morning.  Up the street my friend Dave will finally get his wish and head his tractor up the street to open driveways. (It's been gassed up for two weeks.)  Little kids will try to cajole their Dads out into the yard to make snowmen.  Moms will decide the snow event is worth crawling into a chair with a good book and taking a break from the laundry.  Some will lament that they must still go to work and reluctantly head up the street to that job.  I'll probably walk to my office at the church (just two blocks away) to get a lot of work done in a quiet, uninterrupted office.

My wife will pray that it's a "big" storm so she can  simply be snowed in.  I'd rather not have that much snow because it will mess up church the next day.

Whether we embrace it or hate it or are merely ambivalet -- the winter storm will come and do what winter storms will do.