(It’s the ice I hate).

I didn’t suffer too badly from Cabin Fever this last week, compared to some of my colleagues, who were foaming at the mouth to get back to work when the office finally reopened on Friday. I attribute this to a few factors:

1. I read a lot, and reading is like visiting another world, so my mind at least mentally escaped my apartment.

2. I *did* panic, and did buy a lot of food, so I wasn’t “OMG if I don’t get out of my apartment I’m going to starve to death”, which to my everlasting delight was the predicament one of my coworkers (a real — “Man, you DC wussies panic over half an inch of snow. You don’t have enough food to get you through one night?” — type) who spent at least one night dining on stale Saltines and tap water.

3. I made sure to get out of my apartment at least once a day, even if all I did was trudge up to the Zoo’s gates and take photos of the lions. They are even more majestic covered in snow. (My Mom observed that, covered in snow, they also look like Snoopy).

4. On days when the Office opted to close, the Bookstore did not necessarily. I worked all day Monday and Thursday, where it should be noted “all day” means “limited hours” due to the weather event, which greatly limited the ability of a lot of the store’s employees from getting to work.

I took this photo on my hard walk home after venturing down to Manhattan Market in Woodley Park on a hunt for milk — alas, not only did they not have any, they weren’t even open. This is Connecticut Avenue, but looking at the photo, I have to remind myself that I took it in the year 2010.

(By the way — venturing out on Wednesday was ridiculously awesome, spooky, terrifying, and cold).

Most of my neighbors cleared their vehicles off pretty quickly, and some moved them, and had their parking spaces stolen, which led to all sorts of people venturing out of the building at all hours with pitchers filled with water.

But some people didn’t clean off their cars, including the guy who owns the car in the above photo. Best as I can tell, a plow was trying to clear the street and smashed up his fender. Hey, folks, if for no other reason, clear your car so a plow doesn’t fuck your ride.