We did get a snowpocalypse of sorts today. It started snowing at around nine, then stopped briefly around noon, only to begin snowing again at one PM.
My county, Landkreis Diepholz, did not close its school and thus my afternoon class was due to start at two PM. However, at half past twelve I got a phone call from the school informing me that all afternoon classes are canceled. So there was no film/TV episode watching with the kids today. I’ll probably watch something with this group another time, because it seems unfair if they miss out.
Of course, I am now also stuck with several extra bags of Christmassy cookies, gingerbread hearts, Pfeffernüsse, Spekulatius, the whole works. On the last session before Christmas, I always bring cookies for my students. Teenagers can eat a lot – last year I had three boys finish two large bags of gingerbread cookies – so I always buy a lot of cookies. However, with today’s class canceled, I’m stuck with a lot of cookies. Mind you, the cookies I buy for class are not the same stuff I prefer eating at home. Ah well, someone will eat them.
It continued to snow intermittently throughout the afternoon and into the night. With my class canceled, I cleared the driveway and yard from snow after lunch. That same evening, you couldn’t even tell that I had shoveled the snow away. I’d estimate that we had about ten centimeters of snow altogether today. For Northern Germany, that is a lot.
My town also had the day’s most spectacular snow-related accident, when the driver of a Lamborghini lost control of his car and crashed into a truck. The Lamborghini had a Monaco license plate – the driver likely had no experience with heavy snow and frost. The accident happened on the highway A1 some five kilometers from where I live. Luckily, no one was hurt, though the Lamborghini is only a hunk of very expensive scrap metal now. Not the first luxury car to be totaled in the area either. Within walking distance of my house, there is a specialty car dealership for luxury cars – Ferrari, Maserati, Bentley and the like. Some of their customers are people with more money than sense, who cannot drive and occasionally crash some very expensive cars into tractors, random roadside trees and ditches.
And now for some book and writing related links:
At Salon.com, Laura Miller weighs in on the Edward Docx controversy.
Jeff Vandermeer has a good post on respecting your characters and treating them like real people at Booklife Now.
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