how many Storms Of The Century can you have in a single century?

Part of me wonders if it wouldn't be worth losing the 10 miles per gallon and safety ratings, to trade my Honda Civic for a Subaru Impreza just so I can get all-wheel drive in a small car. Curse you, Honda, for removing the AWD option from the Civic back in 2001. Still, the front-wheel drive is worlds better than my former T-bird's handling on snowy roads, so long as you never need to back out of a driveway that dips down where it meets the road. Not that I could think of any specific examples of such driveways. *ahem*

But then, storms like this only come once a century, or decade, or year. Allegedly. Ones that come to mind quickly:

• 1993: North American insanity storm
  
• 2004: The day of my first chemo session
  
• 2007: Valentine's Day
  
• aaaand even today's storm already has its own Wikipedia article

Fortunately, saner heads are prevailing and most events and happenings in this area are being canceled, including my show tonight. Even our church has canceled its worship service tomorrow, for the first time since 1993. Many cities are instituting driving bans on the roads. Elyria must be waiting until the blizzard is over before plowing again, because I haven't seen a plow down our street since early this morning (and ours usually gets pretty quick service since it's a main road, albeit residential).

I feel sorry for the folks who have no choice but to go to work today, such as at Walgreen's. My parents attempted to go to Walgreen's for some toiletries and essentials (more on that later), and got stuck twice just trying to get into, and then out of, the parking lot. They ended up not even buying anything because they couldn't pull into a parking spot and just wanted to make it home. My Civic's low ground clearance aside, at least it's light enough that pushing it out of the snow is a little easier.


My parents just got back from a week and a half in Florida, where their flight to Cleveland yesterday was delayed, then canceled. Southwest got them to St. Louis, but their connection to Cleveland was also canceled by the time they arrived in Street Louie. In Orlando, they had been told there wasn't enough time to transfer luggage from the canceled plane to the St. Louis plane, but in the ensuing wait and yet another switching of planes due to technical problems, it turns out there would have been plenty of time, had they but known.

Rather than spend two nights in a St. Louis airport hotel with no toiletries or change of clothes, and spending lord knows how many hours at the airport booking new flights and having them canceled again (and losing your chair every time you get up to read the screens), my parents got a flight to Detroit and rented a car to drive home. The interstates apparently weren't that horrendous, and with so little traffic, they actually made good time and got home just after 4 a.m. Who knows how long before their luggage will arrive at Hopkins; hopefully Monday.


But I jest, of course. I'm keeping the Civic.