Toughing out the Great Blizzard of ’15

Sorriest for the dogs, who have to wade through this mountain of snow.

Sorriest for the dogs, who will soon have to wade through this mountain of snow.

Thank God we are generally well prepared for emergencies. We have a 12 pack of AA batteries, a 6 pack of D batteries, and a crank powered radio for the inevitable power failures. We also laid in the requisite provisions from a largely denuded supermarket: 12 gallons of water, 25 loaves of white bread, a large jar of Jif peanut butter, and 25 gallons of milk. (We don’t actually drink milk anymore, but who are we to gainsay official disaster protocols?)

At present we are in good health but as I write this my wife is donning the approved four layers of down-filled outerwear and hip-length snow boots in preparation for the 30 foot journey to the mailbox where further survival instructions from the government almost certainly await.

My job is to look out for the mental health of our dogs and cats, who have been severely traumatized by the immensity of the storm.

The two small dogs can’t hope to go outside, so they are tossing and turning restlessly in their crates, evidently having nightmares that could eventually awaken them. Elliott the orange cat is sitting on the couch staring in rigid shock at the sight pictured above.

Raebert is as you see him below, exhausted by all the stress of the past 24 hours.

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All we can do for the moment is wait and hope, and see how much milk and peanut butter sandwiches we can consume before help arrives.

Wish us luck.

4 comments

  1. Tim’s avatar

    Egad, and I thought the Atlanta Ice Storm of 2014 was bad! Godspeed, sir. Hunker down and wait for a FEMA rescue party. It’s about all you can do at this point.

  2. Peregrine John’s avatar

    After every meteorologist running about with hair afire, panicked stocking that emptied grocery store shelves, every pseudoscientist from Bill Nye to Niel Tyson deGrasse trying to explain how a snowstorm – in winter – is due to global warming… Well, I was hoping for something more cataclysmic. Maybe even a whole foot of snow.

  3. Barbara’s avatar

    Same thing happens here every time there’s a small tsunami predicted or the remote possibility of a hurricane which rarely come to anything. Here, though, we stockpile 40 lb. bags of rice and several cases of Spam (not to mention a couple hundred rolls of toilet paper). I stopped doing that about five decades ago, and now make sure there are at least a few good Cabernets on hand to make my prolonged death more tolerable. Hard to decide whether it would be worse to have Spam and rice vs. Jif and white bread as one’s final meals, but I think the latter, you poor haoles, you.

  4. Instapunk’s avatar

    Spam? I think not. About to have a Jif and onion sandwich. Heaven. You have no idea. You Kanaka Maoli, you. : )

    Good to hear from you, Barbara. Aloha. Or, as we say it here, Yo.

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