Snow and Parties and Wine, oh My

Okay, so remember this:

Snow, falling, lots of it, all over?

Right, so for the last few days we've had nothing but RAIN. Rain that has NOWHERE to go in Kings Beach because there are no storm sewer thingies. (Lit. major and her massive vocabulary strikes again.) It does not rain here. It snows, slurries, blizzards maybe, but rain? Kings Beach no habla rain. So it puddled and pooled and created ponderous footing for everyone as it MELTED the snow, creating slushies as far as the eye could see.

Then it FROZE last night. I almost expected to see icicles several feet long as the temperature seemed to drop so very suddenly after it stopped raining. We woke up to a world of crunchy, smooth, and quite slippery ice. And the snow? Look at the pic to the right...that would be Southish, beautiful sky, but the snow, she is gone! The trees, (the pic to the left, this is to the Eastish) GREEN! You can see what's left of the snow on the sand. Yup, that little patch is all that's left there. The hills are pretty bare.

At first we were all: global warming! Then after speaking to someone who's lived here 36 years, nope. Last year at this time when it was blizzarding, that was the anomaly. Normally snow happens "for real" about the middle of this month, so I have to be patient. But the rain and ice for roads? That's not normal either. I found myself ice-skating to work today. Fun for about 30 seconds. Happily I didn't fall. Wow maybe I should write that again in a pretty color; happily I DID NOT fall!!! Damage Girl herself (I'd be a sidekick, never the actual super heroine) made it TO and FROM work WITHOUT her butt feeling what the road felt like. An accomplishment worth telling the world doncha know!

And tonight was my first ever "company xmas party." I think they call it a "holiday" party or whatever, I wasn't really paying attention, esp. as they provided each table with wine, and we had a crafty member of our party scope out and retrieve abandoned, but filled, bottles from other tables.
So as to protect the innocent and keep my job, I picked a pic where NO ONE can recognize the county employees pictured here, I hope. The DJ, Ignacio, played your favorites from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, 2 Hip Hop songs (I couldn't tell you what they were, no hablo hip hop), and 1 song from the 80s (AC/DC's "Shook Me All Night Long." Telling here that I could tell you the title of that one...). I think there were a couple other songs that were less than 20 years old, I think I recognized the Metallica song they played, but man, I felt old as I sung along to Smokey Robinson. And I knew I had to be up in the mountains when EVERYONE seemed to be clapping their hands and stomping their feet to "Sweet Home, Alabama." L.A. this is not, my friends. But all was well; after all, I did mention the wine was flowing.