Winter has finally arrived here in Wisconsin. Trouble is, it took the form of a blizzard which brought 18 inches of snow! I could concoct a fascinating tale of power outages, snow drifting up to block the doors, eating only what food we had stored in the pantry, a cancelled party, and a sister stranded in London, but I'd rather tell you what really happened. Actually, the truth includes the latter two occurences:

My family was all set to host our annual holiday party on Saturday, but on Friday night, the prospects for the success of the bash had started to go bad. The weather report said that snow was on the way; we assumed that meant that the guests coming from out of town would likely not come due to the weather. No matter, we thought, most of the invitees live in town and would still be able to come.

I woke up Saturday morning to find 6 inches of snow already on the ground. I was groggy enough, though, that I didn't realize we'd cancel the party till my mom said it in so many words. Of course, after putting on my glasses, the scene outdoors looked much worse.

I was actually pretty disappointed: The annual party at my house is the only chance I have to see all of my friends in one place at one time, not to mention the abundance of good food and weird conversation that also occurs. As an added bonus, this year some of my friends from school, Patrick and Sean, were going to be coming. Strangely, I almost miss them more right now than I miss my high school friends when I'm away at school.

After I called all my friends to tell of the cancellation, I found myself housebound and bored. Because it was still snowing so heavily, it would have been pointless even to try to start shovelling, which (believe me) would have been a VERY last ditch effort at entertaining myself. For the most part, I lounged around watching rock stars destroy their lives- VH1 can be so captivating!

Even better, dog-walking duties were assigned to me. Now, my dog is not very big. Connor is about a foot and a half high, and not more than 25 pounds. The snowdrifts, on the other hand, were as high as my hip in many places, and perfectly willing to swallow up furry animals. In order to get to the comparatively clear street, we somehow had to get through my as-of-yet unshovelled front yard. Connor invented a new game I called "dog diving" and floundered through the drifts, leaving behind not paw-prints, but dog-prints. It was really quite funny.

In the absence of a party that evening, I ended up going out to play in the snow with my friend Anna. After the adventure with the dog, I didn't really want to spend any more time in the white stuff, but since she was due to go back to school today, I wanted to hang out with her one more time. I trekked over to her house in my warmest winter things, and we started just jumping around in the waist-deep drifts in her backyard. One problem with playing in snow that deep is that once you've fallen over, it's pretty tough to get back up: You instinctively try to push off the ground, but you never actually reach the ground- you just end up sinking deeper in. We were floundering as much as Connor had earlier, and having barrels of fun doing it. I can be such a party pooper when I'm cranky, but I ended up being very glad I had acquiesced to playing outside.

All this snow has almost totally shut down both the Milwaukee and Chicago airports, leaving Jenna and the rest of the marching band stuck in London. 'Stuck', I suppose, is not the right word- I'd have no problem with an extra day or so in that city. They've apparently thrown together an extra side trip to Stonehenge for the group, which is something else I wouldn't much mind.

Plus, as a long as Jenna's still gone, I get her electric blanket-equipped-bed instead of the sofa bed (is a mattress on top of two bars really a bed?) in the guest room. My toasty comfy bliss won't last much longer, though- we got word today that the band is scheduled to return on Monday or Tuesday.

Listening to: Jeff Buckley, _Grace_. One of my favorite CDs, bought on the recommendation of my friend S.

Link of the day: Words is definitely not in the "Sweetness and Light" category- Scott's scathingly sarcastic observations are quite entertaining.