{"id":9549,"date":"2013-02-12T16:22:57","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T23:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/?p=9549"},"modified":"2014-12-29T20:34:49","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T03:34:49","slug":"okie-snow-be-careful-what-you-wish-for-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2013\/02\/okie-snow-be-careful-what-you-wish-for-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Okie Snow: Be Careful What You Wish For Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

I have always loved snow.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Snow in Oklahoma means an automatic unscheduled holiday.<\/strong> Employers close down their businesses, churches and schools cancel services. We stay home from work, go to the grocery store and stock up on food, put the movies on tv and kick back.<\/p>\n

Like I said, it\u2019s a holiday.<\/p>\n

This happens mostly because we are so totally unprepared to deal with snow and ice. We don\u2019t have the clothes for it, don\u2019t know how to drive on it, and have no clue at all as to how to keep our balance while walking on it.<\/p>\n

A glaze of ice means gridlock; I mean people get trapped in their cars in long lines of traffic that do not move for hours. An inch of snow can shut us down for days. Fortunately for us, it usually melts even faster than it came down. We\u2019re lucky if a snow stays on the ground for more than two days. Or maybe, I should say we are unlucky when it stays down because we don\u2019t have plows to take it off our streets and driveways. It basically has to melt off. If for some reason that takes time, the gridlock extends beyond holidaying and turns into major inconvenience.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about relatives moving in together to share the one house in the family that still has electricity (which always goes off in ice storms) This one house in the family with electricity on which all the relatives descend invariably is the house with one bathroom and no spare beds. Other people crash and bang into one another on the way to jobs that have reopened, no matter the roadways.<\/p>\n

So when I say I love snow, you have to understand that I\u2019m grouping myself with schoolchildren praying for a snow day and not much of anyone else. But it\u2019s true. I do. Love snow, that is. Love the stuff.<\/p>\n

Which is why I\u2019ve been sad about our snowless winter so far. Oklahoma, in case you haven\u2019t figured this out from what I\u2019ve said so far, is not big snow country. But we do get an ice or snow storm once or twice each winter. That\u2019s all it usually amounts to, but it does come around like clockwork every year.<\/p>\n

However, we\u2019d been snowless so far this winter. There were a few flakes before Christmas, but they weren\u2019t enough to dust the ground. I think this is mostly due to our overall waterless state. We are in a drought cycle reminiscent of the one that gave us the Dust Bowl. We\u2019ve dodged the Dust Bowl scenario this time around due to conservation efforts people put in place after the 1930s\u2019 misery. But no conservation effort can change the fact that the rain has stayed away. It clouds up, but nothing comes down, and that has included snow.<\/p>\n

I had resigned myself to a snowless winter.<\/strong> In fact, winter itself was beginning to look like a quickly passing phase instead of a full-blown season. We\u2019ve had shirtsleeve weather a couple of days this past week. Garden supply stores are starting to gear up. And I keep finding seed catalogues in my mailbox.<\/p>\n

Snow was the furthest thing from my mind when I got up this morning. I had two bills up in committee today, one of them an important pro life bill. I was excited and happy about the idea of defending them in committee. I am a legislator, and I live for this stuff. Passing a bill you really care about is one of the highest highs you can have on any job. Passing a bill like this pro life bill, that you know will save lives, is \u2026 well \u2026 it\u2019s reason enough to put up with the guff and grump of public office the rest of the time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I walked out of my house and saw the snow coming down, my first reaction, despite my love of the white stuff, was dismay. I broke my foot last October. Yesterday was the first day I\u2019ve been able to go all day with a regular shoe on that foot in all those months. I spent two months in a wheel chair and even more time basically confined to my house. I still don\u2019t walk exactly the way I did and I\u2019m not all that sure-footed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s getting better every day. But the thought of slip-sliding on the ice with the Gimpster really scared me. I do not want to break anything else. I\u2019ve enjoyed that deal just about as much as I can stand.<\/p>\n

I took heart in the fact that the snow was not \u201csticking.\u201d It was coming down, but melting in the puddles on the ground. I hoped that meant it would be an ice free passage when I needed to get out of the car and walk. But I only drove a short way before that changed. The snowfall thickened and I guess the temperature dropped because it started packing on the streets and piling up on the ground.<\/p>\n

I got over halfway to work and decided the risk was too great. I called everyone and told them I was bailing. Then I turned the car around and headed home.\u00a0No trip to the capitol, no committee meeting, no ice walking for me.<\/p>\n

This is not something I did lightly. In eleven years, I had only missed two days of work, one because of a death in the family and the other one because of Gimpy. Now, thanks again to Gimpy, I\u2019ve missed three days.<\/p>\n

But the thing that really bothered me wasn\u2019t missing a day of work. It was getting that bill out of committee. There\u2019s a timing to these things and the time for this vote was now. I wanted so badly to go in there and present that bill in committee, but the Gimpster has her own rules and I\u2019ve learned the hard, hard way that I\u2019d better follow them.<\/p>\n

Long story short, another legislator friend of mine, Representative Mike Ritze, graciously agreed to handle the pro life bill for me in committee and got it voted out. (Bless him.)<\/strong> I am so grateful to Representative Ritze for being willing to jump in there like that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
Representative Mike Ritze<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

At the same time, I am disappointed that I didn\u2019t get to do it myself.<\/p>\n

I mean, really disappointed.<\/p>\n

I got the snow I was wishing for. And I did not re-injure my healing-but-still-gimpy leg. On top of that, the bill that matters so much to me was voted out of committee, thanks to an understanding chairman and a kind-hearted and willing colleague.\u00a0Thanks to good people who pulled together to help me, a life-saving bill made it over the first legislative hurdle.<\/p>\n

Kinda hard to feel sorry for myself when I put it like that, so I guess I won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The bill is still a long way from making a new law. I\u2019ll have plenty of opportunities to defend it, I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I think I\u2019m going to enjoy this little bit of Okie Snow.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Shrove Tuesday. It\u2019s also two days before Valentine\u2019s Day. If it hadn\u2019t snowed, my husband was going to take me out tonight. As it is, I may make pancakes. We have a bottle of champagne that\u2019s not doing anything.<\/p>\n

Champagne and pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Sounds like an Okie snowstorm to me.<\/p>\n

Have a great evening, my friends. Happy Shrove Tuesday.<\/p>\n

And be care what you wish for.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have always loved snow. Snow in Oklahoma means an automatic unscheduled holiday. Employers close down their businesses, churches and schools cancel services. We stay home from work, go to the grocery store and stock up on food, put the movies on tv and kick back. Like I said, it\u2019s a holiday. This happens mostly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,10,2431,41,48,1],"tags":[2462,2433,14,919,2461,2459,2460,2463],"class_list":["post-9549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-catholic","category-lent","category-politics","category-pro-life","category-uncategorized","tag-fat-tuesday","tag-lent-2","tag-oklahoma-house-of-representatives","tag-pro-life-legislation","tag-shrove-tuesday","tag-snow","tag-snow-storms","tag-valentines-day"],"yoast_head":"\nOkie Snow: Be Careful What You Wish For Girl<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have always loved snow. Snow in Oklahoma means an automatic unscheduled holiday. 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