Snow Day!

Texas is so incredibly hospitable that we managed to welcome the folks from Green Bay and Pittsburgh who are in town for the Super Bowl with "just like home" weather. Isn't it nice of us to schedule an ice storm for our guests? This is one of those days when I'm very glad I don't have to fake illness (which I wouldn't have had to do, since I am actually mildly sick) to avoid driving to work on bad roads. And, for a change, I'm actually between projects on a snow day, so I'm taking a snow day. I may do a little work-related stuff (like this), but it looks like a good day to watch that Masterpiece Theatre literary costume drama DVD I picked up at the library yesterday. This morning, I've been watching people attempting to drive on the iced-over road my office window overlooks. There's one particularly nasty spot that seems to take everyone by surprise.

The real fun of the morning was that I literally couldn't open my front door. My front door faces north, and the freezing rain, sleet and snow all blew up against it, so it was frozen shut when I tried to get the newspaper this morning. I had to get out my hair dryer and an extension cord and blow around the edges enough so I could get the door open and get the newspaper. On the up side, the snow drift against the door does seem to be keeping the wind out, and the wind really is howling. I would even say it is wuthering. I really like that word. It's so perfectly descriptive.

Yesterday's chick flick marathon ended up amounting to watching most of Valentine's Day on HBO when I was too lazy to get off the sofa and the Nyquil was kicking in. It seems like they were trying to do the Love Actually thing but with a different holiday. The problem is that Valentine's Day is such an artificial holiday, and that made the whole thing seem a bit shallow and fake. You know how when movies, TV shows and commercials spoof or satirize romantic movies they show those kinds of scenes that we all recognize from that sort of thing (I'm thinking particularly of the movie scenes in the series Extras)? Well, this movie is made entirely of those cliche romantic comedy scenes, with a few Hallmark commercials mixed in. Since it's a mix of at least ten different plot lines, they don't bother with any of the in-between scenes. It's just the Standard Rom-Com Moments Highlight Reel.

Plus:
Dear Hollywood Executives,
Please stop trying to sell me Ashton Kutcher as the perfect best friend type of guy I should be falling in love with. Maybe I'm just old (though I'm younger than his wife), but I'm not buying it. At all. The stoner slacker a woman clings to out of poor self-esteem, maybe. The hot but dim athlete who can't spell monogamy, so he certainly doesn't practice it, yeah. But the super-sweet, almost gender-neutral nice guy best friend, it's just not working for me -- and I tend to like that kind of guy in movies.
Love, Me

It may just be that I overdosed on Downton Abbey on PBS and am now seriously craving the sumptuous costume dramas.

Oh, some more snow flurries just started (at least, I think it's falling and not just snow that's already fallen being blown around by all the wuthering winds), so yeah, I think it's an afternoon for the electric blanket on the sofa, some tea and scones (or I could even get really crazy and make crumpets) and some costumey goodness.