There are no pics this week.

This is the week we broke out of Snowzilla. Danita was back to work on Wednesday. We were lucky. Some of the people Danita works with didn’t have their streets cleared by then. The public schools gave up and shut down for the entire week. Now that we’ve had our winter snow, the high this week should be over 60. Ka-Ray-Zee!

We did a lot of eating out, drank a lot of wine, and ate a lot of snacks. I remember in the old days everybody bought shovels, milk, and toilet paper before a storm. According to the news, these days the things stores sell most before a storm are alcohol and junk food. Maybe the old ways were better. According to an article I read, as he finished digging his car out, a man was offered $250 for his shovel. He didn’t accept the offer.

Here’s an old Baltimore tradition that is dying out. Many people in the city have to park on the street. When they dig out and go to work, they would put a lawn chair in the spot they dug out so nobody else would take it. Now local authorities are forbidding the practice, insisting that nobody owns a parking spot, and nobody can reserve one. People still put lawn chairs on the street, but now they write notes and tape them to the chairs. The news outlets have been publishing some of the better notes.

Moving on to our neighborhood web site, I was about ready to start loading resident information into our website’s database. One of the things  the board wanted me to do was to send a letter to each household, offering them an “Unlisted” entry so their name and address wouldn’t be out there for all our neighbors to see. Can you tell I think this is pretty silly, to hide a phone book entry that doesn’t even include the phone number? I drafted a letter and sent it to our technology committee for comment. One thing lead to another, and before you know it, we needed a privacy policy. I agree it’s a good idea, but it means a month delay while we draft a policy and ask for board approval. We have a new guy who wanted to join the Technology Committee. Guess who got stuck with the task of getting a privacy policy approved? Thank goodness for new guys.

We went to see Star Wars today. We went to the Noon show. We were amazed at how many cars were in the parking lot. We didn’t have any problem getting decent seats, but there were a lot of people in the show with us. We thought the movie was a lot of fun.

In a little while, we’ll be leaving for a neighborhood Chilli Cook-off. It’s just another name for a pot-luck dinner, where everybody who brings an entree brings chilli. Danita made a chocolate tort dessert. I licked the bowl, which is how I know it’s pretty good. (As if there was ever any doubt.) You can bet I’ll be at the desert table early to make sure I get a slice.

Tuesday is Groundhog day. It’s a stupid tradition, but it’s nice to start thinking of spring. I hope this finds everybody doing well.