Shopping at the end of the world

I don’t recall when or why I began doing so, but I always do my weekly shopping on Friday on the way home from work. It is a convenience that allows me to spend the weekend focused on more exciting options, and to spend quality time with Lucy . It has the added convenience that my local supermarket is remarkably empty at that time.

The weather forecast last week predicted snow for Portland starting late Friday night and promised snow through the weekend.

You could feel the excitement in the students – and in the teachers. Everyone was asking “What if” questions about Monday. Texts and messages about crazy lines at grocery stores were being passed. Could they be true? I wondered, disbelieving all reports.

Skies were overcast and roads were dry as I drove home Friday, planning to stick with my weekly routine. As I pulled into my local supermarket, I could see the rumors were true.

If I don’t get a parking spot, I’ll just drive home. I have enough food to last a few days, I told myself. Although I saw cars circling the lot, I found a spot easily, parked and walked in. All the carts were gone and the lines were very long. I turned and walked out. Halfway to the car I reconsidered. I didn’t have enough yogurt to last the weekend. I’d get a basket, grab the yogurt and some veg and get out.

Well, you’d think the end of the world was at hand. I have never seen a grocery store so picked over. There were a few bunches of over ripe bananas left, so I passed on them. There were almost no packaged greens to be had!

Fortunately, there were lots of avocados, red bell peppers, yogurt and cilantro – the things I needed for what I planned to make this weekend.

As I shopped, I scouted out the lines. Most were long, but one of the self check lines tucked into the beverage aisle and few people realized how sort it was. I chatted and shook my head along with the others in front of and behind me. As predicted, my line was fast. I was at the stand in five minutes and home in ten.

It started to rain that evening. The temperature dipped and about an inch of snow fell on top of the ice. By Saturday afternoon, most of it had melted.

Snowmageddon was more like Nomageddon.

Despite dire warnings from a range of weather networks and stations. No snow fell Sunday. Or Monday. Or Tuesday morning.

Our Snowpocalypse was a Nopocalypse.

 

 

 

Snow Day!!!

I’m home today. School is closed. I’m on the sofa with a dog on each side of me and life is good. I’m thinking about some of my favorite books related to snow.

I have vague memories of a primary teacher reading Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day to my class.

My favorite part was, and still is, making the snow angels. 

The book was first published in 1962, but I think it still works.

If you are housebound for a long time, you might have time for Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials  series:  The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass.

For Neil Gaiman fans, there is Odd and the Frost Giants, which draws on Viking history and  Norse mythology.

Matthew J. Kirby’s  Icefall also has a Viking setting. Trapped in a hidden fortress tucked between towering mountains and a frozen sea, Solveig–along with her brother the crown prince, their older sister, and an army of restless warriors–anxiously awaits news of her father’s victory at battle. But as winter stretches on, and the unending ice refuses to break, terrible acts of treachery soon make it clear that a traitor lurks in their midst. Solveig must also embark on a journey to find her own path.

What are some of your favorite snow related books?