It is a fact that some of my weekly GEMS, although given a Monday date, are actually written on Saturdays. This is usually done when one of the following two factors is in play: (1) there is nothing heavy on my Saturday schedule, or (2) there will be an unusual demand on my time Monday. Today is one of those Saturdays. In fact, today is like no other Saturday I’ve ever experienced!
Snow — read that as SNOW! — is now more than 30 inches where I live. According to the TV reports, Elkridge registered 30.3 inches at 8:00 AM (highest amount in the state) and since the snow has been continuing to fall to the present time (12:30 PM), it is obviously more than that amount now. Since moving to Maryland in 1989 I have been through several multiple-day snowstorms that measured in the 20 plus inches but never one that topped out over 30 inches. Since my windows are almost totally covered with blown snow (we have been labeled as being in ‘blizzard’ conditions), I’ve looked outside from the front of our condo building and I can barely see the top of my Honda Civic. And we are being told that this is wet, heavy snow — not the dry fluffy snow that’s rather easy to shovel. So I have much for which to look forward when I begin the task of ‘plowing out’ either later today or early tomorrow.
All of the above information is simply groundwork for stating the obvious: there’s really not much that one can do (schedule-wise) when enveloped and surrounded by 30 inches of wet, heavy snow. I can read (which I will do as I have finished Sue Grafton’s latest book and have started Vince Flynn’s recent thriller, Pursuit of Honor); I can watch TV (which I will do if a basketball game catches my fancy); I can sleep (which I plan to do with a nap later this afternoon); I can busy myself with email (which I have already done); or I can EAT — which seems the most enjoyable and the most inviting of all the possibilities open to me. In preparation for this heavenly deluge, Cleo and I both bought “snack” food for the occasion: salted nuts, do-nut holes, chocolate-covered peanuts, honey-buns, etc. — you get the drift! None of that good (?) stuff like celery stalks, apples, oranges, carrots, etc. In a time such as this — one needs “comfort” food; can I help it if my comfort is found in fattening and unhealthy goodies? And when one is “bored” (and being cooped up inside for the better part of 48 hours qualifies) what more natural thing to do than nibble. You know — a bite here, a bite there, bites wherever! Sure, I will later hate what the bites do to me and my ‘boyish’ physique, but during 30 inch snow-storms, I admit that I am an undisciplined connoisseur of junk food!
Oh, there is one more thing I can do on such a day as today; one more possibility that offers itself to me as a part of the day’s opportunities — I could write next week’s GEM! However, I have too much integrity in my writing to lower myself to such an unprofessional journalist level. So — just as soon as I finish the donut I’m working on, I’ll get on with the task of doing something constructive with my time. And the thought that keeps returning to me is wondering what my readers are doing during this storm. Undoubtedly something much more worthwhile than what I am now concluding!
Pastor Jimmy, February 8, 2010
