Pajiba

I'm thinking someone should call child services, just to see if those kids are alright...

I have lots of random snow day memories. The most absurd being when Me and a friend of mine decided (since we had seen the forecast) that if there was, in fact, a snow day the next day, we were going to get up at the usual time for school. We then proceeded to play Diablo 2 all goddamn day. 15-16 hours of pretty much continuous video games. Life was good

What's a snow day? Is that when school is cancelled because of snow? It doesn't snow in south-central Texas.

Well, ok, it did twice. But the first time was really "snash", because it was mostly ash from the Mt. St. Hellens eruption.

The second time there were 18 inches of snow on the ground in less than a day and in a city which owns exactly one salt truck and one sand truck everything shuts down as a result. Too freaking bad it happened during the two week December vacation and we weren't in school ANYWAY.

Wow, another San Antonian who was around for the 1984 storm, PeachFish?

I made the SADDEST little snowman EVER. I even have pictures of it. It was this pathetic little 12 inch high thing.

That snowman was no where near as pathetic as the dirt-and-ash-with-a-little-snow-in-it-man that I made in 1980.

My favorite snow day memory is of my best childhood friend - my little mutt dog named Pepe - running up to the front door and being unable to stop. Smashed right into the glass face first. I suppose that makes me a serial killer, right? Well, it was funny! And he lived to tell the tale.

Oh and one other time my whole family was staying at my aunt's house in upstate New York. We woke up to snow that was about three quarters up the door and had to dig our way out. We kids thought that was the coolest thing ever.

So to recap, snow and doors = fun.

My favorite snow day memory was when I wound up getting a week's extension on a horrible paper I had no intention of turning in, which allowed me to turn it into a good paper.

After I procrastinated all week and went sledding at a neighboring town's high school. Sure, you run the risk of sledding straight into traffic because the hill's so steep and the lawn not quite as long as it seems from a distance, but that's the fun of it. I sled till my finger's couldn't fing anymore, went home, warmed up, then went sledding again. Memories.

My most memorable snow day happened four years ago. I was living in New Hampshire at the time. New Hampshire, for those who aren't familiar with the climate is a frozen hell-scape from October through May.
This particular day was Thanksgiving 2006. I spent the entire day cooking Thanksgiving dinner alone. This was the ninth year in a row I had spent doing this alone. As I cooked the snow continued to pile up. When I finished I popped my head in my husband's office and asked if he'd like to take a walk in the snow with me. He declined because he was in the middle of playing an online computer game.
I went for my walk in what was now about two feet of snow. I thought about the last nine years and all the life events I had experienced without my husband due to his computer game addiction. All the Christmases, all the Thanksgivings, all the Birthdays, and everything in between.
By the time I got home from my walk I decided it was time to end the marriage. My husband joined me for the fifteen minutes it took for him to scarf down the meal I spent all day preparing then went right back to his game playing. And with that I knew I had made the right decision to leave.

Right. It will literally be a cold day in hell if we ever get a snow day in Florida. We do get hurricane days, though. The best one I ever had was 5 months after my husband and I got married. Hurricane Francis slammed into the east coast of Florida and played with it like Patrick Bateman and two hookers. The electricity flickered a few times on the first day, them finally went out. So, my husband and I sat around all day and played board games. I may or may not have wiped the floor with him in Trivial Pursuit: Lord of the Rings edition.

First of all....caffeine, Sarah?

When I was in jr. high we had a GINORMOUS frakkin blizzard right after Christmas....the Blizzard of '78, as it is referred to around these parts. School was closed for 2 solid weeks (and, I might add to you pussy edumacators today, we DID NOT MAKE UP A SINGLE DAY!! and I'm a pretty smart bitch!!)

I lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere, with a 1/2 mile lane to the highway. We were completely snowed in. My mom and I walked up the lane in snow up to our hips to check the mail, and to pick up groceries my older sister and her husband brought on a snowmobile.

I dug tunnels and forts in the 12 foot drifts, went down the very steep hills on our lane on a snow shovel sled, skated on our creek in my moonboots, and came in after playing in the white wonderland to be greeted with a cup of hot chocolate, laced with my mom's stash of peppermint schnapps (thus beginning my love affair with the boozage) It was glorious.

You don't gotta tell me about the snacking, Tyler. The Tater Tots don't even get to school until after 9am and they're done by 3pm. That's six lousy goddamn hours, and they have TWO snacktimes and a lunch. And every single time they're asked, "What did you do in school today?" they tell me they played a game or drew some pictures. So basically, they spend six hours a day learning how to be perpetual kindergartners. AWESOME. No wonder Whitney Houston ended up on the smack. She believed the children were our future, yo.

About 2 years ago, I took Monkey sledding in our back yard. Our back yard is not that big but it has one hell of an incline. We used the lid from a Rubbermaid container and slid down the hill, sliding to a stop when we hit the privacy fence. Sure, we could have broken our legs or whatever, but we didn't. Besides, Monkey was 3 years old and I think that kids that small have rubber bones or something. She did bite it walking back up the hill, but she sucked it up and brought the 'sled' the rest of the way up.

Childhood (ish) memory:

When I was 15 we had about 37 inches of snow fall overnight and throughout the day. School was closed for a week. My house was on the corner of two streets, so not only did our backyard wrap all the way around to the front, but the snowplows for each surrounding street pushed the snow to the edge of our yard, creating a MONSTROUS snow drift. My brother and sister and I would bundle up every day, climb the snowdrift, and play King of the Mountain. The rules: shove each other like maniacs into the snowy earth miles below, until you are the last one standing.

SO MUCH FUN.

Adult memory:

When I first moved to Manayunk when I was 24 (a smaller, hilly as fuck, collegey area of Philly) I lived four blocks from my best friend Jay. Jay lived at his brother's house with his cousin, both who I consider my pseudo family. Around us in Manayunk lived college friends of his cousin (one of whom this summer I would start dating). So needless to say their house was constantly filled with awesome people. That January we had a snowstorm which dumped about 25-28 inches on Philly. Jay and I spent the night in our coats and hats, drinking red wine on the covered porch and watching cars slide down the hill. Later that night me, Jay, and his cousin walked around the neighborhood wasted, falling with each step and admiring the snow. The next day (Sunday) we joined up with a bunch of the Manayunk boys at our favorite bar, where we proceeded to drink, eat, play pool, and chat with other locals from 11:00am till 9:00 that night. The day was filled with bloody Marys, Mad Elf, bar food, vicious pool tournaments, and playing every song on the jukebox. It's my favorite memory of living in the 'Yunk.

We had a snow day last Friday! We simply have ZERO idea what to do when it snows here in Houston, so when all of an inch or two of snow hit around lunchtime, everybody got sent home so we wouldn't have to drive in "dangerous" conditions later in the day. It was back up in the 50s by Saturday morning, so bye-bye snow days for another however many decades it will be until we have snowfall again.

Yep, we're brave folk down here.

Having grown up in southern California, I have no idea what a snow day is like. Only twice in my life do I even remember anything worse than 20 minutes of hail (which I remember trying to pretend was snow and attempting to make snowballs out of. Did. Not. Work. And I have the scars to prove it).

We do, however, have fire-days. It's kind of the same as a snow day but instead of going outside and playing in the snow, you have to stay inside because the smoke from the fires is too thick and you can't breathe. I would say it's about as fun as Sarah is having with those kids.

Is it sad that I can't remember many snow day memories? I live in Minnesota, like Sarah (up until a couple weeks ago I lived about ten minutes away from her NO I'M NOT STALKING HER LEAVE ME ALONE), and I know we had a bunch of them, but fuck me if I can recall anything, really.

I don't remember a lot of stuff from my childhood, because when my dad died my brain kind of decided that it didn't want to record anything anymore. Seriously, there's a huge chunk of years that I only have trace memories from. I don't believe I started thinking again until sometime in high school.

The one snow day memory I have is my mom not believing me when I told her school was canceled, and bundling me up and making me stand outside to wait for a bus that wasn't going to come. I think I waited there for a half hour before going back inside. Before sending me out my mom had yelled at me to stop making excuses, so I think I was scared to go back.

Obviously she realized I was right when she turned on the TV and saw that there was no school. I didn't get an apology, which was and still is par for the course with her.

Another time school was canceled when someone called in a fake bomb threat. This was during high school, and my friends and I sat outside on a nice sunny day for about an hour while SWAT and bomb teams searched the school. It was pretty stupid. Then, since I lived literally three minutes away from the school (while walking), we just went to my house until they officially canceled school for the day. Good times.

I think my favorite snow day memory has to be the time me and my buddy, Jimmy, went sledding on The Big Hill (where all The Big Kids) hung out. We were way too little to be cool and we got picked on by...some douchenozzle in a snowsuit and Jimmy's comeback to whatever that kid said was "Oh yeah? Well, your mother dresses you funny!" I really thought it was the most brilliant line ever and it totally made my day. The bully, he was not impressed, and I believe Ole Jim got a face full of snow for it but he was totally One Clever Bastard in my book.

All that getting a trophy just for playing bullshite is because you live in a BLUE state, you libtard. Come down here and raise those precious snowflakes in Tejas, where THEY WILL MELT FROM THE HELLISH HEAT and then there won't be any problems.*

*Lest anyone not get it, that was pure sarcasm about the libtard thing. I am a rather proud evil socialist commie baby-killing devil-worshipping gay-lovin' libtard myself.

ANYWAY.

What the fuck is snow?

Though I must say, I'd appreciate it if you northern muthafuckas kept your evil ass, so biting cold it makes you cry involuntarily storm fronts and winds UP THERE WHERE IT BELONGS and not in Dallas, because I walked about 500 feet to the stupid Jack in the Crack (didn't feel like driving anywhere) for lunch and just from walking the 500 feet back in that gotdamned cold wind, my stupid curly fries and Big Jack of Greaseburger was COLD.

So fuck the cold. I like balmy cold, not this shit.

Oh crap. I totally screwed up No Whining Wednesday and I was REALLY going to try today. I was! But I think it went downhill when I put my panties on backwards and then the corner of my cardigan slopped into my coffee.

We had a large ice storm sometime in the late 70's or early 80's when I was a wee one that knocked out our power for about three days. At first we tried cooking over our fireplace with camping gear, and sleeping in sleeping bags in front of the fire to keep warm, but this quickly grew old. We then packed up and slid our way over to my grandparents' house who had a wood stove and hadn't lost power. A couple of my other aunts and uncles did the same thing, which meant that all of us cousins had two days of anarchy in a new environment. I had a great time. It was only when I talked to my mother as an adult that I found out she most certainly did not have a great time.

My favorite adult snow days were in college. They always became 'get-wasted' days, which meant we started drinking at 10:00 instead of 3:00. The only sad times were when no one had thought ahead to get weed.

Northern VA, blizzard of 1993, 5th grade. Given that the D.C. area is incompetent at dealing with snow (the threat of a "wintry mix" will close down schools and government days in advance), I ended up with an entire week off of school.

Spent every day sledding on the awesome hill at my elementary school and every night slumber partying with my friends (even though my house was visible from her backyard...too much snow to make it home, no doubt).

Best snow week ever. I don't think NOVA has seen the real thing since.

It doesn't snow here often, unless you live on the hills. My college campus was literally at the end of the road and way up in the mountains. When it was very cold it would snow, and it was funny because there were palm trees all over campus, and seeing palm trees covered in snow was kind of apocalyptic and awesome.

My friends and I went to class one day and it had snowed the previous night, and since people will use *any* excuse to skip class, most of our classes were cancelled for lack of attendance. So, we had lots of hours to kill. We obviously played in the snow, and we all ganged up against one of my friends and five minutes later she had a moose knuckle of snow down her pants. Also, since we were all girls, we made a music video in the snow. I slipped and fell on my ass, and it's all on youtube.

Because I'm from Atlanta, all it took to snow out my History exam in 8th grade was the WARNING of THE ICE!. So my dad and I drove around all day doing stuff talking about how great it was that my exam was canceled because of THE ICE!!!! that never came. Now I live in New York and I recognize that southerners are little bitches about winter. But Yankees are little bitches about rain, so, draw.

Living in Michigan, I had a lot of snow days as a kid. One of my favorites was after a bad ice storm; everything was all sparkly and shit. It wasn't very fun since going outside was hazardous but the image of ice covered trees has stayed with me.

Another time, in college (where my university didn't have snow days due to some law students logic-ing that if even one student wanted to get their money's worth of classes for the day, they should be able to), my roommate and I had a snowball fight at midnight in our driveway. Our landlord would always send a snowplow for the driveway we shared with two other houses, and our cars would inevitably be blocked in by the drifts. My roommate decided to eliminate the snow pile behind her car via the snowball fight. It was just us two and we had amazing fun; we ended up borrowing our neighbor's shovel and playing "baseball" with chunks of snow.

Ah, snowy memories.

My favorite snow day is from when I lived in Iran. I HATED staying at home and knew it was going to be a snow day. I got ready and left the house before my mom could listen to the school closure announcements on the radio. There were barely any buses or cabs, so I had to walk about 7 miles to an empty school that had no heat (it was during the war and fuel was rationed), no students, no teachers, one administrator and the janitorial staff that lived there. My best friend came to keep me company, where we feasted on (stale) bread and boiled potatoes with the janitor's family, ran around to keep warm and finally went to buy ice cream cones from a poor guy standing in the street with a cooler full of frozen treats. By the time I got home, I was wet to the bone and had a fever, but it was one of my favorite days living in Iran.

My favorite Snow Day? That would be the Snow Week I had my senior year of college. I'd just gotten back from Spring Break, sunburned and hungover. Monday was a normal day, but Monday night the gods saw fit to dump over 3 damn feet of snow on our little mountain town.

My boyfriend at the time rushed out to the liquor store on Tuesday and bought enough liquor to last the month. Classes were canceled Tuesday and Wednesday due to snow, and Thursday and Friday because all the snow was causing roofs to collapse all over campus. My roommates and I build a giant sledding hill that started on our roof. We built an igloo in the back yard. We built a snow penis, which we were later forced to dismantle at the request of the police.

I have to say, one of the highlights of the college experience was answering the door completely wasted at ten in the morning for cop who asked "Miss, is that your giant penis? We're gonna need you to take it down. Your neighbors have been complaining."

I was 7 years old during that '78 storm. We lived way off the beaten path in OC, NY (dirt road, farms all around, etc.) right around the corner from my grandmother's house. Nobody was looking to make sure we could get out, so we were snowed in for days. My brother and two aunts, who are just a couple of years older than me, entertained ourselves and I never had more fun. We went sledding down the hills between our houses for hours, ending up in the woods every time. We dug snow tunnels in the middle of the effing road because nobody was going to be driving by. We would trudge through the fields to find the perfect spot to build our 'snow village' which would proceed to destroy via snowball attack. Then we'd hike back to Mimi's, sit in front of the fire with hot chocolate to dry out and warm up so we could do it all again.

Snow is just a giant pain in the ass now.

Growing up in DC we didn't get much snow, but when we did it was awesome. The ice storm (cause yeah, it was ice not snow) shut everything down for a week. Power went out, pipes froze, heat was a problem. But my dad was the super prepared type, so we had enough food to wait it out. We built a fire in the fire place, melted ice in pans, and ate dehydrated food. Might not sound like the best of times, but my dad was really good at making things into adventures. We pretended we were in the olden days in a log cabin and weren't we lucky that we didn't have to hike out to milk the cows.
Other then that, DC public schools rarely cancel. Most of my memories consist of waiting by the radio hearing all the other schools getting canceled, and the best we got was a 2 hour delay. Another great thing about DC when it snows is that during the day it turns to slush and then at night it freezes. Makes the next days commute extra fun. Finally I would like to mention that the erratic temperature fluctuations during a DC winter means that snow never lasts for long. I remember one year we got a foot of snow and two days latter it was 88 degrees. My mom has a great picture of the snow evaporating.

Yesterday, it snowed several inches, and we got a merciful snow day. Truly, a great reward, but the best snow day I ever had was on my kid brothers birthday. Nobody had to go anywhere, and it just felt so right at the time.

I'm fine that I'll never get one on my May birthday. I'm sick of snow by then.

In the beginning of 07, a huge snowstorm hit Philadelphia and shut down the city. No one was driving, the city workers were told to stay home, the SEPTA didn't run (as I recall). People were riding their bikes down the middle of Broad Street; the main thoroughfare of Center City, deserted and left to the cyclists.
And I was walking around through empty snow-covered streets, the snow still falling and I could only think that it felt like a movie set. I was just waiting for the right girl and the kiss under the streetlight.
And people at my school, from the Southern states and California and Florida, the ones who had never seen snow before in their lives; they went immediately outside to build hills in the dormitory courtyard for sledding. Snowball fights and snow angels that I took for granted all the years before were something new and fun.

My favourite snow day(s) occurred when I was living in Toronto... probably around 1998. They had a snow storm, and it was colder than usual (say around -15C or 0F). They got 3" of snow or so. Literally. No more than that. The entire city was shut down, they had to call out the army, Prince Edward Island had to ship snow clearing equipment out.

I wasn't just laughing because I take pleasure in the misfortunes of Toronto, but because their biggest problem seemed to be their snow clearing equipment. They had this great snow clearing device that scoops up the snow and runs it backwards over this heated conveyor, then spills it as water into the street to run off into the sewer. Probably works pretty effectively in a large city without a good place to pile snow... provided the temperature is within a couple degrees of freezing.

In this instance, the machine functioned like a zamboni, and turned all the streets into smooth sheets of ice. I'd never seen anything like it. It was hard to muster up a lot of sympathy when the problems seem to be caused mostly by the zambonis driving around all the streets.

But I got a couple of days off and a lifetime of being able to make fun of Toronto for not being able to handle real winter.

I'm canadian, we don't have snow days. if we did, we would be home knitting and watching reruns for upwards of six months of the year.

In fact, we practice an elaborate fantasy denying our protracted intense winters. we expect everyone and everything to function exactly the same as it would on a balmy summer afternoon even when several feet of snow get dumped on a city in a single day.

All our public spaces like malls, schools and workplaces are designed as though Canada was in Miami and you wouldn't actually be carting around toques, mitts, scarves, parkas, galoshes and 12lbs or clinging salt and slush everywhere we went for the majority of the year. Our bus stops tend not to provide protection from the elements, even though said elements are lethal for much of the year.

And maybe most odd, culturally and though sports and activities we celebrate an environment not the least bit conducive to life as though it were Eden.

Remember that next time you cross paths with a Canadian and stereotype us as quiet and polite(isn't that how serial killers are typified?). In reality, we are dangerously psychotic, delusional and cannot be trusted to even make passing acquaintance with reality.

Vive la Bonhomme de Neige!

My favorite memories of snow day involve waking up - knowing it had snowed hard the night before - and sitting in front of the morning news and waiting to see if the county had closed school. We were "Wake County" so we were all the way at the bottom of the alphabetical list. The wait was practically torture for a six year old.

When a snow day was official, I donned my hot pink snow pants and electric blue parka and I was out the door for the rest of the day. I loved it! Too bad we moved to Southern California when I was twelve. Stupid Los Angeles with its 50º weather in December!

I remember one year we got a foot of snow and two days latter it was 88 degrees. My mom has a great picture of the snow evaporating.

Morgan LaFai, I believe you mean "sublimating". That's how DC rolls...

Man, living in the Bay Area sucks. We don't get shit. No snow days, no hurricane days, nothing. The most that ever happens here is there could be some flooding on some of the rural roads. And if you went to school in the middle of nowhere, it might be cancelled. But only after your carpool had driven floated through two feet of water. But that was only once.

When we lived in SoCal the most exciting thing would be an earthquake and all the little kids would roll their eyes and bitch about having to get on the ground under the desks. And there was always the kid who was new who would be under the desk, just losing their shit. And we would laugh and laugh.

One time, it got really cold in Phoenix, and I had to scrap ice off my windshield with a credit card. Ice! I know, wacky.

Gentleman Farmer that's the most amazingly stupid solution to a problem I've ever heard. WTF Toronto?

Also I think I may be Canadian because I always say, "Oh shit" before sliding into a ditch. White-outs are the worst. Too scary to drive in, too scary to pull over because you don't know where "over" is.

It's 80 friggin degrees in Florida and I'm staring longingly at a cashmere sweater I get to wear once a year.

Well, there was the year in college when classes were called off and my friends and I went sledding. My boyfriend tackled me in the snow and dislocated my shoulder.

Then there was another year when I jumped off a building into a snow bank (to impress a boy), but the "snow bank" was more of an "ice bank" and I broke my foot and my hand.

And then there was the year in high school that my best friend came over and got snowed in, school was cancelled, the heater broke, and we got so cold and bored that we just ended up making out, a decision that made the rest of high school pretty awkward for us.

I hate winter. And boys.

I fucking hate snow. Luckily we rarely get much here in the Willamette Valley. Portland is pretty much completely incapable of dealing with snow, so 1/2" will shut this Mo'Fo' DOWN. We had an EPIC snow and ice storm last year that crippled the region. 14-16" of snow with 1/2" of solid ice over the top. The Ice was the real problem. I got an unwanted 10 days of unpaid vacation (because that is what a snow day is when you are self employed), shut in the house with the pets. When I finally could get back to the stables, the horses had all been stall bound for almost 2 weeks because the ice was too dangerous in the steep pastures. What a bunch of fucking crack heads.

Hate snow. HATE.

Foursweatervests: Trashmore is an awesome place to sled! It's been so long since we've had enough snow here to go.
Best memory is in college in the mountains of Virginia. When it snowed we would steal trays from the cafeteria and use them as sleds. When the snow was over there would be signs all over campus asking us to return our trays to the cafeteria.

I grew up in the mountains in California, and we never got snow days, no matter how much it snowed (Yes I am still bitter). But my favoritiest Snow Day happened when I was in college, at a University on the North Coast, where it snows never.

I came home from my job at midnight, the phrase "Want fries with that?" still ringing in my ears, and it started to snow just as I got to my dorm. I spent an hour watching the snow fall, the only person awake in the whole complex. It was silent and beautiful.

Next morning, even though there was only a few inches on the ground (I used to fight 4 foot snow drifts to get to my bus in high school, did I mention being bitter?), classes were cancelled.

We spent the morning hanging out in the commisary, eating eggs and home fries and watching people build snowmen and making snow angels. Later on the roads cleared and the bars opened...Irish coffee was enjoyed by all :-)

Good Times.

"So THANKS SARAH LARSON FOR MAKING ME FEEL INADEQUATE IN FRONT OF ALL THE OTHER PAJIBANS"

Yes, well, it's what I do best and I don't like to hide my light under a bushel (word on the street is that it'll stunt my growth).

Even a snow day once a year is too much. We have NEVER had a snow day. Simple. I live on an island in the Mediterranean. We don't have snow and it never gets below zero.

The roads are built by retards and are always full of potholes so every time there is some rain the streets look like a swimming pool. That's practically the worst weather effect we have. Kids are always expected to go to school, and they don't have heated classes and usually they don't have very good fans either so it gets extremely hot in the summer time, which is practically all year round. Suck it.

All this talk of childhood snow days has given me a warm fuzzy. Thanks, everyone!

I live in north Texas, and while we rarely see snow, we do usually get one or two ice days a year. My favorite was about ten years ago. I was in elementary school, and we got the day off b/c in Texas, people totally freak over any kind of winter precipitation. My little sister & I put plastic bags on our feet and went "ice-skating" on the street. It was a blast.

Oh man. Snow days.
Grew up in NW Indiana (think lake-effect snow).

There was the storm still referred to as The Great Blizzard of 1964? 1965? Of 'Way Long Ago....
Anyway - of course there were blizzard warnings on the tv and radio all day, etc. Once I got home from school (sent home early), my mother and I set out for the grocery store. Didn't have the car, so we walked (3-4 long blocks), towing my sled. Everybody had already bought up all the milk, and most of the bread, so we got some weird bread-like object - and ice cream. Ice cream in the middle of 2 feet of snow. (Cause us kids need milk, you know....)

Still remember that. It also became something of a family tradition that if 12 or more inches of snow was on the ground, someone went for ice cream.
Usually me. Using the sled to bring the stuff home.

I fucking hate all of you right now.
The ones who have snow, I mean.

Haven't seen snow in Amsterdam in 2 years.

But hey, there's rain! Glee! Lots of it, and in many, many, many different types, with ofcourse the favorite 'Big Downpour with faceblasting wind.'

Throw a snowball for me?

London is famous for it's transport system failures when the first snowflake hits. So there were a couple of Snow Days last winter - of the involuntary kind. People just couldn't get to work. Many employers (mine included) made people take those days out of their annual leave allowances. Fuckers.
I made it in to the office, but it took me four hours instead of 45 minutes, and wasn't worth the trouble as all our clients had decided not to work anyway. But the next day I had to do it again, with the added bonus of bruises from falling on the ice on my street - twice. I fucking hate snow in the city.
The only bright part was the large snowman my (grown-up) Saffy neighbours made in the front garden. I gather it doesn't snow much in Johannesburg...

I've never had a snow day in my life, I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area (East Bay to be exact). Got sent home early a couple of times because of power outages that lasted more than an hour (when your high school is so prison-like that the only windows are high on the wall, tiny, and laced with chicken wire it gets pretty dark). Also got locked into school because of a chlorine gas cloud leak once.

The power out days I think I went home and watched Sailor Moon.