Closings, Delays.

Well.

First things first: around 5 a.m., it started snowing — enough to dust the WeatherDeck furniture, the grass, the tops of the tree branches, the tops of the cars. Soon enough after, it started sleeting and raining, and here's why, according to the fancies at the NWS: "WARM AIR MOVING IN FROM THE SOUTH AND EAST HAS CHANGED THE PRECIPITATION IN THE NORTHWEST PIEDMONT OVER TO MOSTLY RAIN MIXED WITH SOME PATCHY FREEZING RAIN." I'm leaving it in caps because it helps me imagine the way they talk over there at the National Weather Service. You get the feeling there aren't many Casual Fridays.

Shepherd's Center of Greensboro: Closed. Jazzercise, Winston-Salem: closed. Epiphany Early Childhood Center: closed. St. Blaise Ear, Nose & Throat: opening 11 a.m.

It is beautiful, though, the ice on the Japanese magnolia and the dogwoods and the rhododendrons. And maybe a little something for free: the beauty of an ice storm without all the damage, although I confess here that the damage and destruction has always seemed part of the beauty of an ice storm. As in, You don't get all this without giving something back, OK? Still. The sound of a freezing rain is thoroughly different from a regular rain— there's the first sound, the sound of the water coming down out of the sky, but then there's the second sound, the slowed amplified drip of everything that doesn't freeze to the branches, everything that freezes and melts again, almost a second rain.

Sunnyside Ministry: closed. Guilford County Schools: closed, optional teacher workday. Omega Meats: not closed, and ringing my doorbell right now with their goddamn freezer truck in my driveway, some dude wanting to sell me eight ribeyes for $20.

It's winter. It's gray and cold and wet. I have plenty of coffee. I went to the store last night at midnight to buy emergency supplies: cinnamon rolls, a carton of mushrooms, a sweet potato, a yellow pepper. There was nobody in there. That's one way I knew that probably warm air would move in from the south and east, etc. There was still milk in the store. Still a few loaves of bread. Home Depot had their snow shovels out front and center yesterday. I thought that seemed optimistic.

Winston-Salem Squadron, Civil Air Patrol: evening classes canceled. Guilford County Animal Shelter: closed, employee code A.

I mean, I can't complain. We got our wintry mix.