It's currently -13°F here.
The Walgreens display is telling everyone that it's actually 32°F!

We wish Walgreens. We wish.

I don't even want to risk putting up a post of more than a few sentences. I'm afraid that these subzero temperatures could cause the bits to freeze somewhere in the tubes and clog the whole internet!
(Currently -11°F according to google)

People that actually know me know how much I love snow. 0.

I love snow 0.

If I was going to go sledding, or build a snowman, or fort, or something cool… I would temporarily love the heck out of snow.

So yesterday it started snowing BIG huge snowflakes. And somehow I managed to inhale a few of them up my nose.

The worst part about snow is the driving. I don't mind driving in snow that much, but EVERY year people forget how to do it. I drove past 3 cars that were off in the ditch, probably 10-15 police cars, 1 fire engine, and 2 rescue squad vehicles. There was less than an inch of snow on the ground. Yeah, it was slick, but.. wow. After a week of having snow on the ground, these people will be back to speeding along right behind me, but somehow the first time they see snow, they instantly become suicidal lemmings and try to follow each other of a cliff.

I end my little rant with a picture of my car with snow on it.

It should have been a snow-day. I should still be in my nice warm bed.. enjoying.. yeah.

It's still blizzarding outside, and it's not supposed to let up for quite some time. Driving is ridiculous, and the city, once again, doesn't seem to have any idea what to do when it snows. I've never lived in a place where the solution was to plow the snow into the center of the road, or build an enormous pile that blocks almost an entire road and then leave it there for several days before loading it into dump trucks and getting it out of the way.

A "snow emergency" was declared today. What, exactly, does that mean? Basically, if you need to go downtown for something, you'd better park on the sidewalk or someone's yard, because if you're on the street you'll probably get towed – or – have a snowplow mercilessly redecorate the exterior of your car.

So I sit here. At work. Drinking coffee and eating 85% and 99% cocoa dark chocolate.

In my head, the roads play music.

My Saturday visit with Chang Tan was less exciting than I had hoped for. Far less exciting. It turns out that the little red panda guy was much more keen on sleeping on top of a box near the ceiling.. which looked like it was right under an air vent. The amazing "super-glare glass" made pictures almost impossible. The best picture I took, you can see the lump of him, and maybe make out an ear. He was still cute.

I did get some pretty good video of the cotton-top tamarins though. They look like little gremlins. It's great. Hopefully I'll have them up on youtube by the end of the week.. but since I still don't have internet access at home.. no promises. There are also some good pictures of the lions, and polar bears, and a lizard of some sort that was only labeled as "The Rain Forest."

The highlight of the trip to the zoo was.. wait for it.. the river otter. He was the only animal that seemed excited to see us. Watching him flip off of the glass, follow our hands along the tank, and bail on the other zoo visitors to follow us to the other side of the tank. I don't know his name, but he was a lot more fun than a sleepy red panda.

But yeah.. videos and pictures eventually. 🙂

After spending almost the entire day outside.. I'm now frozen to the very core of my being.

The dog in this video is demonstrating the exact opposite of how I feel towards winter and snow.