I told you NPR doesn’t lie

So there you have it. It started around 1pm on Saturday, and didn’t stop until about 7pm that night. In just two hours, though, there was enough to flummox the windshield wipers and make me grateful for AWD on the Sub. It was lovely, really. I’ve never actually watched snow fall in the place where I live before, and certainly didn’t expect that I would on December 1, but there you have it.

I hear, you know, around, that this snow, and the unstoppable rain (NOT good ol’ Seattle drizzle, mind you, but jeans-soaking rain) are very unusual in general, but extremely unusual this time of year. Just so you don’t think I’m being a wienie.  Matt took other pictures that you can see on flickr.  Enjoy.

Also, for anyone who is keeping track, my personal unit test score was 65% today–not my highest, and not my lowest. Though, truth be told, I didn’t take the test for a couple of days there over the weekend, knowing how dreadfully low the score would be. Ted was correct in his warnings that, sincere as your effort may be, trying to game your own system is an inevitability. The best thing you could do to circumvent this, he said, is to make tests that are objective. That is, observable from the outside. Would an unattached stranger see that you flossed your teeth? Clearly, if you had, the answer is yes.

Of course, the next thing that happens is that you start to live by the letter of the law, instead of the spirit of the law. Example: the housekeeper came yesterday and also I did not clean the counters in the kitchen. Keep in mind that we did cook dinner last night and cleaning the counters would have been justified. But, this morning, as I took my test, I tried to convince myself that I should pass the Kitchen Counter test, because even though I didn’t do it, the counters did get wiped at some time yesterday so that’s just as good. See what I mean?

Also, Ted’s absolutely right about this weekend mess. Part of the problem is that you’re allowed to do things on weekends that you’re not on weekdays. It’s a problem because in many ways it’s really ill-defined, exactly the ways that weekends differ. Clearly, I don’t have to put in an 8-hour work day, but does that mean I also don’t have to floss? What about the clothes on the floor–if I have them cleaned up before I go to bed on Monday, is that good enough? Then there’s this whole take-Sunday’s-test-on-Monday thing…

Don’t worry, though, I’m not giving up. I’m still here, and I’m going to tweak and annotate my tests until I have completely mastered my gums and my habit of throwing sort-of clean clothes on the floor.

Here, look at more snow: