unexpectedly, wham, a lot of snow. what seemed like just a little sprinkle turned into real snow, and even out here, twenty miles on the warmer drier side of cloudcroft, it's still snowing hard. it's probably at an inch and may go up to about three.

the problem is that they are closing the hill, and my wife is on the wrong side of it. she was going to get pizzas in alamo on her way up, and probably stopped in alamo, i don't know, but in the meantime i'm sitting here by the computer watching as warnings come in and they close the road on the hill.

the hill is steep - one of the steepest roads in the us - and has steep dropoffs on the sides of it, so, if things get bad, one can go right off the side. the same is true of our little mountain. ideally in weather like this we don't go anywhere. we just cancel out of everything and sit home until the plows have a chance to make a difference.

it's not really a question of whether the household can run without her. we have food, and i can cook, and we'll probably be ok. but she walks with crutches, and is a little unused to weather like this. i picture her on the side of the road, having gone off, unable to get out of the car easily.

it's distracted me to the point where i can't really get much writing done. i've been doing mcdonald's short stories, and other ones, and doing pretty well on them, but now i'm pretty much stuck. i have several other projects i turn to when i have writer's block, but in this case, i'm not even turning to them. when i'm truly stuck i play online boggle and scroll facebook endlessly.

now i could put this one-to-three inch white new year on display on my facebook, but most of my friends wouldn't even be impressed - they've seen much worse, especially in illinois, kansas, colorado, etc. it's not that much. i seem to be paralyzed, over-worried, hanging by my phone, and nervous - but most people around here have seen much worse, and they already have four wheel drive.

she's in the subaru, fortunately. she has the garmin (it's an emergency satellite-operated phone) - we're in the garmin district. and finally, she's pretty clever, about when to stay off roads altogether. she might. it might be better than being the first one up a steep icy hill.