Snow Days

I don't know why anyone is surprised by the vicissitudes of Oklahoma's winter weather. We should be taking wild fluctuations in temperature and extremes of precipitation in stride by now. The past four years have each handed us at least one bizarre Act of God between Christmas and St. Patty's day. Apocalyptic ice storms, temperatures plunging into the single digits, and now the latest: Thunder Snow. I don't know if Tuesday's snowstorm was more intense than last year's Christmas Eve Blizzard, but it has been much more long-lasting. Four days of frozen snow, and more yesterday, astonishingly enough.

That in itself is unusual. Typically, Oklahoma dumps its snow load once and then it vanishes within a few days. But it has been brutally cold this week: too cold to even enjoy going out to play in the snow. Grayson and I have been holed up inside, curled into our individual well-worn pockets of the sofa, inert. G's been watching cartoons on the computer and I've been reading and doing some mosaic work, until I ran out of blue tiles.

I'm becoming a bit inert. The less I do, the less I feel capable of doing. Soon I'll begin to turn into a form of semi-sapient jello.

Fortunately, the sun returned today, and I see the icicles lengthening on the patio cover. I believe the snow will be gone by this time tomorrow. Back to our regular Oklahoma winter programming. Hot and cold.

Today, I'm seriously considering rounding up a group of people to go throw snowballs at the Westboro Baptist Church. This twisted paean to religious insanity is picketing the funeral of a 20-year-old Moore woman killed in a sledding accident this week, because "God Hates Oklahooma." Well, of course, their god hates everything but them, apparently, but it's nice to know he has a special hate reserved for Oklahoma because Oklahoman welcomed His People by slashing their tires last time they showed up in Moore. And no garages would agree to fix them.

Soooo, they're back, to thumb their noses at our Godforsaken state and further break the hearts of the girl's poor family. I know they're not worth the effort it would take to spit on them, but I do feel a certain pride in Oklahoma being singled out by the nutjobs. Oklahoma suffers from its own brand of fundamentalism, but at least we don't welcome the truly insane.

The funeral is at 1:15... and the snow should be melted to the perfect consistency for really great snowballs....

I can't decide if it is worse to cause a melee at this person's funeral, or to allow this nutjob "church" to pull off another publicity stunt on Oklahoma soil unaccosted. Hmmmm.... think, think, think.