would everyone stop talking so I can think of a title? please?

Well, we were planning to drive to the North Shore today to visit my aunt and uncle and various assorted other relatives, but the Causeway is closed. The roads are too slick and maybe even icy. It’s been sleeting all morning, and you can see bits of ice pellets on the roof (in New Orleans, they call this snow). In short, this is as close to a white Christmas as you ever will see in the greater New Orleans area.
If it keeps up, we also will have to cancel plans for my sister and her boyfriend to drive over here tonight so we can see The Life Aquatic at Canal Place Cinema (note to boyfriend: yes, this is the theater where we saw Lost in Translation, although Sis’s boyfriend assures me that the audiences there are normally well-behaved). My brother and I might go see it at the movie theater in Clearview, assuming I can talk him out of wanting to take my dad to see Meet the Fockers.
I don’t really mind the change in plans too much. I get to sit here at a nice kitchen table and try to catch up on writing, although admittedly it is a little difficult when people are talking and channel-surfing and asking me if I know where the remote went or if that looks like Barry Bostwick or how much I like the choir singing on TV (well, it’s not actively offending me) and whether we should eat in the dining room away from the TV and if we can time it around some damn football game. Also, using the keyboard on the laptop irritates my arms because they have to rest on the edge of the laptop. Who came up with the bright idea of putting laptop keyboards close to the monitor edge instead of the other edge? It’s quite irritating.

Okay, it’s not a little difficult, it’s a lot difficult. Why do people put on the TV when they’re not watching it? I used to put on the TV late at night when I was doing work at home, but that was because I liked having a little noise in the house at that time of night, and it helped keep me awake. It’s noon, the house is full of people, and no one needs to stay awake. And yet we are all being subjected to a bell choir on TV because there is no thought of turning off the TV set. My dad just noticed the bell choir, though, and he hates the damn things, so I suspect we will be returning to the basketball game in a moment.
I would love to hear Cartman singing “O Holy Night” with the cattle prod (from “South Park”) but I doubt it’s on TV right now. I have a copy on a CD my boyfriend made me, but I don’t have headphones. Why didn’t I bring headphones? Silly me.
I woke up around 9 am today. We don’t have any kids staying in the house this year, so we didn’t have to get up particularly early. We had coffee (I had cocoa) and some special Christmas breakfast bread that a friend of my parents gives them every year, and then when my baby brother woke up, we got out the Christmas stockings. My mom had held back some presents last night for those of us staying here to open this morning. I think this is the first year we’ve had completely chocolate-free stockings, but that was all right. My stocking had a boxed set of the first season of The Simpsons in it, which is a much nicer stocking stuffer than chocolate.
I just now asked my little brother to please turn down the overly operatic Christmas singing on TV. I turned towards the window to thank him when he was done and noticed something unusual.
“It’s snowing. I mean, real snow,” I told him.
My dad got off the phone and started ranting about how my uncle called for the second time today to repeat a conversation they just had 15 minutes ago.
“Daddy.”
“I don’t understand him. I just told him –”
“Daddy. It’s snowing.”
“But no, he has to call back –”
“It’s snowing. Look out the window.”
My mom walked over and saw the snow. “Get the camera! Get the camera!”
I took a ton of photos, which is the great thing about a digital camera. My mom is going to get her overcoat and fur hat so I can take a picture of my parents in front of their house in the snow. It’s not sticking on the ground, but the roof is a little white.
Later in the afternoon: It’s been alternating between sleet, rain, and snow all day. Actual snow, like they get in other parts of the world. You can see these big wet flakes falling from the sky, even though most of them melt when they touch the ground. My mom has been going bananas with a variety of cameras. Lots of roads are closed and my sister and her boyfriend are going to have to settle for watching movies on DVD, I guess.
It really is a white Christmas in greater New Orleans. This is the equivalent of hell freezing over. What will happen now?

P.S. I broke one of my parents’ phones in an attempt to use their dial-up connection to download this particular entry. At least this means I’ll have another funny story to share later.