At least, you'd think that's what they were doing here in Portland based on the "special reports" airing on the news every ten minutes about the "weather event" we had yesterday. Originally, the forecast was for freezing rain to begin around 6 p.m.ish, but snow actually started falling gently around 2:30 or 3:00 and it was quite pretty from inside the warm house where I was watching Disc 1 of 24 (Season 4) and knitting a hat.

By about 6 p.m., there were about 2 inches total on the ground, but that didn't stop the newscasters from heading out in force, broadcasting live pictures of the back-ups on Interstates 5 and 84 and 205, and the Sunset Hwy and talking to "experts" about... well, the snow. They were eager to have 'news' to report on, obviously, and kept going on and on about how the snow had come "early" and caught people off guard.

"No!" declared I, out loud to the TV and anyone else within earshot, "the snow wasn't early, you just failed to predict it correctly!" My dad snorted and laughed. I giggled and went back to my knitting. Rennie chewed on her bone, without even looking up to acknowledge that I'd said anything - funny or not.

Having now lived through winter in a place where winter actually happens and people continue to live their lives in spite of it, it amuses me to see all the Portlanders scurrying around looking timid about driving. I don't blame them, though. People here don't know how to drive in snow - simply because we don't get much of it - and it would likely be easier for them if the snow plowing here was more effective when we did.

The problem is that plowing only happens on the larger streets and highways and they use sand rather than salt, so even with the "plowing" you can still hit patches of ice. The freeways always seem to get the worst of it and invariably, there is usually at least one jack-knifed semi somewhere on the roads to help block up traffic. And, despite my frequent jokes about Portland only having 2 snowplows, according to one of the "experts" on a newscast last night, we actually have 55 plowers out there. That still doesn't sound like a lot compared with the 3,000 plows in the greater Boston area but it is better than I expected.

Anyway, so I spent the majority of the day inside yesterday giggling at the newscasters, and by the time I got up this morning everything was slush and roughly back to normal.