After a couple of days it started to snow, so I smartly decided to park the car up at the driveway entrance so I could get out in the morning to work without digging all the way down the very long driveway. The next morning I got up to 18 new inches of snow! So an hour before I needed to be at work I put on my new snow pants and trekked up to the buried car.
Before we reach said vehicle, I wish to take this trekking time to tell you about another experience I had recently with snow not in Alaska, but in Portland. My family and I went to a matinée showing of Avatar one unremarkable, dry, overcast but not overly cold, day. When we walked out of the theatre I thought we had been transported to another dimension, or at least a different state. There was 2 inches of snow on the ground and more coming down in big fat flakes. Shocked is and understatement to how we felt. We had not an inkling of the possibility that this might happen. It was quite and adventure getting home in all that. Anyway, back to the poor snow drift that was once a car...
Brushing the powdery build up off the top of the car was easy, opening the frozen shut door was another story. The problem with frozen doors, that you can't get any leverage on a little, lift up car handle, even if you can get the key in the frozen keyhole. After trying several different strategies, which I won't bore you with by detailing now, the very nice plowman, who plows the snow up to the gate at the end of the driveway, was kind enough to jerk open the door for me. Thank you plowman!
I made it to work quite safely and on time. Triumph of the week.
At work we were pulling books off the shelves for the annual inventory sale when the blackout hit. Juneau is not connected to a larger power grid, and so all of the power used here is generated locally. It is mostly hydro power, and the main plant is quite a ways out from Juneau, so it is not unheard of for a single snow slide (or other event) to take out power to the whole city. When this happens the power company has backup gas generators in town that they can power the grid with until the line is fixed.
So it was a little surprising when the power went out that day at work, but not really worrying. We had to get all of the customers out for safety reasons, then went back to pulling books by flashlight , with a little help from the emergency lighting. It was quite exciting. I quite enjoyed being in the dark with all of those lovely smelling books.
It should go without saying that the smell of books is one of the best in the world. Old library books are better than new, but book store books still rank right up there with lavender, lilac, and how it smells outside after it has been raining all day.
On another book related note, everyone who is reading this blogs needs to get up off their rears right this moment and make their way to the nearest independent book seller (see what this job has done to my loyalties? I now view Amazon as the unspeakable evil.) and buy the book Animalia by Graeme Base. It is the best alphabet book ever written or illustrated! For serious. There is an alliteration for every letter, my favorites are V and Q. Q is "Quivering quails queuing quietly for quills." And on every page is a beautiful illustration of the animals performing whatever action mentioned in the alliteration, littered with other things that start with that letter of the alphabet. On the B page, for example, along with the "blue butterflies basking beside a babbling brook" there is also a baboon playing a bassoon, among other B things. I bought a copy from work one day and sat with it that evening at the kitchen table at home for a good 40 minutes fully entertained. It is my professional opinion that every household own a copy if not two.
