Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where the Sugar Plum Faerie has given her dancing snowflakes a potion that as made them multiply with reckless abandon! We got 22 inches of snow over the weekend, and today it looks as if we'll get more than another foot. As a consequence, we at "The Gods Are Bored" are declaring a snow day!

Snow days are like your grandmother's best cake. You don't even get a slice once a year, but that only makes the one you do get that much better. Snow days are better than holidays. They're so random. You can only plan for them 24 hours in advance. Then, you have to wait until the world shuts down around you and hope that your employer shows some good sense. In the case of the Vo-Tech where I work, the sense was abundant. I knew yesterday that I would have a snow day today.

Prior knowledge is so helpful. Ask my cat Alpha, who was almost out of food.

Living in a major metropolitan area can be a noisy existence. The planes! The planes! The traffic, the sirens! Snowstorm, take me away! Can't land a plane in this kind of storm, not even in Manitoba. So it's blissfully quiet. Except for the giggles of the little girls next door, who are managing to play in snow up to their waists.

Alpha is drowsing by my side, Lil Scratch the netbook is clicking away, and I'm still in my bathrobe.

Last year I attended an Alchemical Fire on May Day. When it was my turn to speak (I am the Cailleach, so I'm last), I said, "If not for winter, would we celebrate spring?"

This year I may say that again. It bears repeating, especially after such record-setting weather.