STATES OF EMERGENCY

      The day before yesterday, I started digging out my car in preparation for today's trek to the shelter. Yesterday, I finished the job. Older and wiser, I've learned that digging the car out of a foot of snow is no more work than clearing a path to the ignition. I let it run for a total of 90 minutes, and the warmth did most of the work. The roads are treacherous, but there weren't too many other nutcases out there, so I had room to breathe.

       Mr. A has been running the kitchen single-handedly for 3 days, and this morning was the first time "the boys" had seen each other since the storm hit. They had a lot of catching up to do! If I didn't know better, I'd think they were a bunch of old women.

       For dinner, they made a huge pot of greens and another of mashed potatoes. Then they breaded dozens of pork chops and deep fried them. So dinner will be tasty. Lunch was another story. Early on, I was assigned the task of sacking 25 PBJ lunches. When I finished, I looked around for lunch preparations. There was one of those cardboard pizzas in the oven… but that's all. Then Crazy handed me a pan full of what looked like hushpuppies (little bitty corndogs). Doug declared the pizza to be "burnt," and told me that the corndogs were lunch. I was to serve them with a bag of chips. Period.

       "And no," he said sternly, "you can't have any fruit!"

       So I rummaged through the mystery box where I found several cans of cranberry sauce. Don't say anything! I just can't stand to see a 3-section plate with an empty section. Crazy yelled from the dining room, "Ain't nobody gonna eat that cranberry sauce, Miss Joy!"

       No matter. When I served up the plates with corndogs, chips, cranberry sauce and little candy canes on the side, they were colorful, and we'd hit an all-time low for nutrition.

       Only one of the little boys was at lunch, and I gave him some bubbles. He refers to me as "The Toy Girl." Imagine that—not the toy lady, the Sunday lady, or ma'am! The little girl got a stuffed bear, and our 1-year-old was there, but I wasn't prepared for him. Next time.

       The Toy Girl smells like the deep fryer, and she's hungry. Think I'll fix myself some lunch and watch the snow melt. Be safe.