A child care thing goin' on

Parents: It's 6:30., do you know which cafe Mrs. Jones and your children are at?

Are they holding hands? Making all kinds of plans?

While the jukebox plays their favorite songs?

Oh, the weather inside is frightful. . . .

And in a bid to prove Charlie Brooker's point, the local Fox-o-maniacs in New York City decided this morning to sling some snow . . . in addition to what they are more accustomed to slinging in their viewers' direction.

Five months

Oh, how a mere five months (and a little bit) fly by.

Oh, what changes a mere five months can bring here on the Great Plains.

Above is the wheelbarrow garden bed in our back yard, as pictured July 28. Back then, it was in full flower despite the cooler-than-normal summer, and we were picking messes of mustard greens every week or two.

BUT ALL GARDENS come to an end, and both of ours were done by Oct. 10 (above). It was the first of many snows this fall and winter.

AND NOW, our little wheelbarrow garden bed as seen an hour or so ago. Yesterday's snow is blowing, and the mercury is dropping like a rock.

The forecast, according to Channel 7: Low tonight will be minus-13. High Friday will be minus-5. Low Friday night -- 23 below zero.

Once again, the pioneers were not wimps. Come to think of it, neither are we.

All right, let's go. Bundle up and git 'er done!

Stay South, young man!

Omaha, Nebraska -- a snowy hell.

Its citizens hang on to the tattered threads of their sanity as the wintry apocalypse proceeds apace. It's ice cold out. Worse than ice-cold out. It's worse than Greenland out. As cold as the South Pole out.

And it's snowing. It hasn't stopped snowing for a month now. Nearly 3 feet of the white plague is on the ground.

We're all going to die. But no one will find us until spring -- if it comes this year -- because we will have been drifted over. Goodbye, cruel world.

TAKE HEED, Californians! Listen up, Texans! If you are looking to escape the Sun Belt hell of your own making, this is not the place. We have hell of our own -- snowy hell.

If you come, you will freeze and die.

Take this friendly advice, you Southerners in search of Heartland charm and Midwestern wholesomeness. American Gothic froze over after Grant Wood died of frostbite. In other words, "Stay South, young man!"

Horace Greeley said that before he died of frostbite, too. And then his desiccated carcass was blown away by a tornado when June came around.

REALLY, you people don't want to come here. This land is only fit for hardy Nebraskans; we're used to this stuff.

The preceding message has come to you courtesy of the Keep Nebraska for Nebraskans Committee -- M. Favog, treasurer.

A d-d-d-d-day in the l-l-l-l-life

I saw a film today, oh boy.

The English army had just . . . taken a wrong turn, ended up in Omaha and froze solid.

Sorry, Your Majesty. Bad colonists!

YOU GO AHEAD and read what's in today's World-Herald. I'm going to put on another pot of hot tea and curl up into a fetal position:

Snowfall is forecast to resume tonight, with about 4 inches possible.
If you want to warm up, you might consider heading to northernmost Alaska; or to Thule, Greenland; or even Moscow.

None of those places was as cold Monday morning as Omaha.

Shortly after daybreak, the mercury plunged to 20 degrees below zero at Eppley Airfield.

And there's more chilling news ahead.

Winds are expected to pick up Wednesday afternoon, meaning blizzard conditions are briefly possible. Blowing snow could limit visibility for the Wednesday evening and Thursday morning rush hours.

After a slight respite today and Wednesday, dangerously cold conditions are expected to last until Saturday, according to the National Weather Service and AccuWeather, The World-Herald's weather consultant.

Once the arctic air arrives Wednesday evening, forecasters say, it's likely that temperatures won't rise above zero until Saturday. By Friday morning, wind chills could plunge to 30 below, or worse.

In places like Moscow, Thule, and Barrow, Alaska, the lows on Monday ranged from 10 below to 10 above zero. The forecast for Reykjavik, Iceland — highs in the 30s all week — looks like a walk on the beach compared to Nebraska and Iowa.

Watch out where the huskies go. . . .

Have a houseful of dogs, especially those of the yappy variety? Has your locality just been smacked good by a blizzard?

Are the drifts in your back yard deep enough for Fido to disappear into, never to be seen again . . . at least until spring?

Well, Bucko, Revolution 21's Blog for the People and 3 Chords & the Truth have the helpful hints you needed yesterday.

Follow your host, the Mighty Favog, as he shows off the Wintertime Canine Superhighway of Bidness Doing. All you need to keep your furry friends happy, dry and . . . alive . . . is a snow shovel and the basic knowledge one can gain from listening to Frank Zappa's 1974 album Apostrophe(').

AND ALL you need to remember is "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow":

Dreamed I was an Eskimo
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da)
Frozen wind began to blow
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da)
Under my boots 'n around my toe
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da)
Frost had bit the ground below
(Boop-boop aiee-ay-ah!)
Was a hundred degrees below zero
(Booh!)
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da)
And my momma cried:
Boo-a-hoo hoo-ooo
And my momma cried:
Nanook-a, no no (no no . . . )
Nanook-a, no no (no no . . . )
Don't be a naughty Eskimo-wo-oh
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da)
Save your money: don't go to the show
Well I turned around an' I said:
HO HO
(Booh!)
Well I turned around an' I said:
HO HO
(Booh!)
Well I turned around an' I said:
HO HO
An' the Northern Lites commenced t' glow
An' she said
(Bop-bop ta-da-da bop . . . )
With a tear in her eye:
WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO
AN' DON'T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW
WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO
AN' DON'T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW

WELL, THAT'S ALL your fearless leader has for you right now, my children. So, until next time, this is Mighty (Nanook) Favog signing off.

I-I-I-I'm d-d-d-d-d-d-dreaming of a w-w-white C-C-Christmas

It's brutal out there -- a full-blown Plains blizzard.

So far, though, God's whole "Enough! Be still and be at peace" initiative through better meteorology is going OK this Christmastide. After a busy day posting the Christmas edition of 3 Chords & the Truth and shoveling the walk and driveway several times, I'm a good kind of tired and remarkably unstressed.

Maybe that's because the blizzard has taken away all the wild expectations surrounding the holiday. It has been stripped to its essentials . . . and so have our lives, for just these few days.

FOR US, at least, the rush to get presents wrapped, etcetera and so on, has been diminished. Holiday entertaining, too.

Today was a day of getting done what needed to be done, managing to get to Christmas vigil Mass while the getting was . . . possible . . . and then making a pot of our traditional Christmas Eve chicken-and-sausage gumbo for a late-night supper for two.

Even though the simple act of getting to Mass involved the driveway-shoveling equivalent of a forced march, it was all good. And the snowy drive to church, truth be told, fell under the category of Things Guys Like.

IN OTHER WORDS, a good challenge. And I don't think God minded that I showed up to Christmas Mass in snow boots and two pairs of sweatpants.

You don't shovel in finery, is what I'm saying.

But now it's really late, I'm exhausted, and it's time to go to bed. Tomorrow -- today now -- is another day, Christmas Day, when we will continue to be still as we scramble to beat back the elements howling outside the door. And suit up to shovel away enough drifts for the poor dogs to go outside and do what dogs do.

JUST CALL me Nanook of the North.

Merry Christmas from snowy, blowy Omaha, by God, Nebraska.

Let it O! Let it O! Let it O!

Chances are, this time of year means downtown Omaha looks something like a winter wonderland.

That's especially so this snowy Christmastide. And it's about to get even more that way as we brace for the whitest Christmas we've had in years.

IT'S ALL in the World-Herald:

The weather service has issued a winter storm watch for most of the state for Tuesday night through Christmas eve. In central Nebraska, six to 10 inches of snow are possible. In eastern Nebraska, the storm is likely to begin with freezing rain followed by several inches of snow, the weather service said.

Wednesday “will see a whole variety of precipitation -- snow, sleet and freezing rain. It looks like a pretty ugly day,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Tom Kines.

Snow and hard winds will continue through Thursday, with some flurries and frigid wind chills on Christmas Day.

But it's a little too soon to know exactly what's coming.

That shouldn't come as a surprise, given how this year's weather has unfolded. After all, climate scientists are perplexed by autumn's odd weather.

North Platte received more snow in October than it usually sees in an entire year. Across much of Nebraska, October and December have brought near-record cold.

With December's cold came a snowstorm that blanketed much of the United States and brought the nation's midsection to a halt.

Climate scientists say a couple of factors are upending the weather lately. But they hold onto hope for higher-than-normal temperatures in January and February.

“This could turn out to be one of those years when December ends up colder than January and February — at least, I've got my fingers crossed,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Halpert said a North Atlantic weather phenomenon known as the Arctic Oscillation has been playing havoc with the end of autumn.

The jet stream, he said, has shifted farther south than it normally does at this time of year, allowing cold air from Canada and the Arctic to drift down.

“We're not sure why it's doing this,” he said, though “we have some suspicions.”

TONIGHT, the TV weatherman said freezing rain (translate: ice storm) Wednesday changing to snow the afternoon of Christmas Eve, with "several inches" of accumulation by Christmas morning. This could mean we'll be walking -- not driving -- to midnight Mass this year. Or not. It depends.

What it does mean is we'll be pretty much snowed in this Christmas.

See, in a season where we're all prone to rushing around, getting busy, getting frazzled and "Christmasing" ourselves into a state . . . well, God has His way of saying "Stop! Enough! Be still and be at peace."

And, frankly, that the Almighty can do that while dressing our landscape in the finest white garments -- and making everything so jaw-droppingly pretty, especially at Christmas -- ranks among the most fetching of the Midwest's charms.

The pioneers were no wimps

Some think heat vents are to keep your house warm.

That may be the case, but on blizzardy days like this, heat vents have a higher calling. Heat vents are where you dry your wet shoes after a couple of hours shoveling the walk, the driveway and (just to make sure you can get out in the morning) the street in front of your house.

And above the heat vent is where you hang your wet socks and thaw your ice-covered wool cap. At right is how I've been doing it lately.

These are the tricks of the Midwestern trade when winter blows across the Great Plains. As I write this, the wind is roaring outside the studio window.

Snow is coming down at the same time the wind is blowing it up from Omaha's newly minted urban tundra. Not a creature is stirring this snow-packed and windblown predawn -- at least no sane creature -- and the cable and Internet has been off and on.

(Note to self: Finish this post while the Internet is still on.)

CHANNEL 7 says it's 10 degrees out, with a wind chill of minus-11. That would be the high temperature this Wednesday; it's all downhill from here . . . all the way to 9 below zero about 24 hours from now.

Hello, December. Glad you could make it in time for Christmas.

Below is how things looked by the time I finished the second round of shoveling Tuesday evening. It's the look of snow coming down at a decent clip.


THIS was before the blizzard began in earnest.

At left is the view out the front door after the blizzard began in earnest.

This may go on for a while, according to the weatherman. Probably until noon, maybe longer.

Below is what you see when you open the front door enough to stick the camera outside -- getting it, and you, good and wet. Our car is parked in front of the house.

Perhaps you can make it out.

On a night like this -- when you have a driveway that slopes down from the street -- you don't try to get up the drive in the morning. Not when the snow has been falling, and drifting, all night.




IT'S DECEMBER in Nebraska, y'all.

The pioneers were no wimps. And, come to think of it, neither are we.

Bring it on.

Oh, the weather outside. . . .

On the street where I live, the sounds that echo across the frigid Omaha snowscape are the roar of the snow blower and the scrape of the snow shovel.

The snow, it falls silently.

The schools are closed, and even the malls will lock their doors and extinguish the lights of Christmas commerce in about an hour. The snow's falling harder than ever, the blizzard part is yet to come, and my city is shutting -- and hunkering -- down.

By nightfall, on the street where I live -- on the streets where millions of Midwesterners live -- the only sound to be heard will be that of the roaring wind. That, and snow blasting against the windows of the houses where we live.

Everything's canceled, and only the foolish will venture out. Well, the foolish and the cops. But at least the cops are getting paid to fight the losing battle with a December blizzard.

I FINISHED Round 1 of the day's shoveling a few hours ago. My coat and shoes probably have dried by now -- my Nebraska Cornhuskers wool cap, too -- my gut is full of hot dark-roast coffee, and it's about time for me to do battle with about four fresh inches of snow.

If I'm lucky, I'll get the walks and driveway cleared before the wind comes howling across the Plains, blowing the snow that's falling and the snow that already has fallen.

Out here in the great Midwest, all God's creatures are trying to beat out the December gusts. I'm trying to get the snow cleared before it all starts to drift, and the squirrels, sparrows, cardinals and blue jays are trying to fill their stomachs before digging in for the evening.

I think I'll have another cup of coffee and a bite to eat before rejoining the battle. Because it's December in Omaha and, truth be told, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Autumn wonderland

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We're happy tonight.
Walking in a winter wonderland.

Gone away is the bluebird,
Here to stay is a new bird
He sings a love song,
As we go along,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

When it snows, ain't it thrilling,
Though your nose gets a chilling
We'll frolic and play, the Eskimo way,
Walking in a winter wonderland.

-- Richard B. Smith

They spell it 'Eskimeaux'

You have no idea, since moving to Omaha two decades ago, how many times I've heard from Louisiana kin and acquaintances, "Oh, no! You can have all dat cold and snow! It too cold up there for me!"

One high-school classmate recently referred to me living in "Alaska . . . er, Nebraska."

WEYUL . . . looky at the above picture of LSU's Manship School of Mass Communications this morning (courtesy TwitPix). And read the following from The Advocate in -- heh heh heh -- snowed-in Baton Rouge:

With schools and many businesses closed this morning, area residents took to the snow-covered streets to enjoy the rare weather.

Even as snow turned to sleet, sledders and even a snowboarder slid down the rolling white hills of City Park.

On the LSU campus, seniors Kirk Melancon and Cade Worsham ran around the snow-covered campus fairgrounds with a few-dozen other students.

The two roommates started with photos and snowballs, which eventually led to full-on snow wrestling.

“I have one more exam today at 5:30,” Melancon said. “But I had to come out here today. This is a one in 15-year snow.”

Meteorologist Danielle Manning with the National Weather Service in Slidell estimated that 3 inches of snow fell in East Baton Rouge Parish, 2 inches in West Baton Rouge Parish and 5 in Livingston Parish.

The average snowfall in greater Baton Rouge is 2 to 3 inches, she said.

When Chicago native Chris Horton looked out of his Baton Rouge window this morning, the winter scene reminded him of home.

“Straight up Chicago,” he said. “I couldn’t think of anything but being in the Windy City.”

BATON ROUGE now has had more snow than Omaha so far this winter. You have nooooooo idea how funny I'm finding this.

Anybody down there need a snow shovel? I have a couple, moderately used -- $100 cheap! Each. Will FedEx for an additional $55.

Mardi Gras . . . here and there

THIS IS MARDI GRAS in New Orleans, with the Golden Band from Tigerland (that's the LSU band for you infidels) marching in Rex, the grandest parade of Carnival.

THIS (left) is Mardi Gras in Omaha, where people call it Fat Tuesday, for they are infidels.

No one is parading in Omaha. That's because it's snowing, it's 21 degrees, the wind is blowing like a son of a gun, and the snow is drifting all over.

My big Carnival fun has been shoveling the walk and driveway. Maybe I'll try shoveling again while drinking beer.

THEN AGAIN, the @#$&*!$ bottle probably would freeze to my lips.

On days like today, this Louisiana boy soooooooo wants to go home.