"Blizzard buddies, 80s coats and a neighborhood meeting"

"Is it Christmastime yet?" asked my three-year-old cousin in Philadelphia when my grandfather told him about the snowstorm that unexpectedly hit Western New York Thursday afternoon, and late into the night.

Not quite, we told him.

Although it did feel eerily like December on Friday morning as my sister and I peered out the front window at any sign of activity from the neighbors, like Mrs. Kravitz from Bewitched. We dubbed the strangers we waved to out of boredom our "Blizzard Buddies."

The Thursday afternoon before, I wasn't sure whether or not it was appropriate to use my umbrella to shield myself from the rain that turned to snow, and then hail, as I hustled to my car on campus. Visibility worsened on the drive home. Snow, the second week in October?

We hadn't even started putting up Halloween decorations.

That evening my sister and I took refuge at my grandparent's house in Tonawanda, instead of driving home to Middleport, a canal town 20 minutes north of Lockport. The few small branches that began falling onto the windshield of my car were warning enough to park in the driveway away from the canopy of trees lining the side street.

When my sister arrived around 8:30 p.m., I had to drag limbs longer than my entire body that were blocking the road so she could pass, and then gave her car a push up the driveway as it momentarily spun from the weight of the snow.

The snowfall took a brief respite around 10:30 p.m., long enough for the neighbors to emerge from their houses to access the damage. My sister and I ran outside to join in on the spontaneous "neighborhood meeting."

"This is Biblical," my friend's dad told me, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. The group of us stood in silence, listening to the eerie echo of cracking wood up and down the street. We shivered in our spring jackets and fled for the warmth of the house.

Friday when we awoke, the power was out. We learned later that day that upwards of 389,000 people were sharing in the same predicament. I heard my grandparents on the second floor trying to figure out how to work their disposable camera so they could take pictures of the devastation surrounding the house.

My grandmother was all in a dither and asked me, "How is my cell phone working?" With a giggle, I explained to them the modern workings of cell phone towers and satellites.

With down power lines draped across the street, a driving ban in place and the university closed down for the first time in decades, my sister and I wrapped ourselves in blankets and attempted to stay warm, sipping hot chocolate and tea with water warmed on my grandparents' space heater in their basement. The best adjectives we could come up with to describe the storm that brought new meaning to Friday the 13th were "strange" and "weird."

After awhile, we ventured outside to take pictures and assess the damage, decked out in bright orange puff jackets dating to the early 1980s my grandmother had in storage. A huge branch three-fourths the width of their modest front lawn littered the front of the house, and in the backyard an old tree was completely split in half, its still-green branches kissing the ground.

Across the street a neighbor knocked snow off of a power line swinging across his driveway with a shovel and another neighbor yelled to friends a few houses down, scouting out some much needed coffee. The little kids next door hung over their porch railing, big smiles on their faces, watching their mom walk through the snow in knee high black boots.

"It looks like a bomb went off in my backyard," my Aunt in Newstead told us when she made her round of phone calls, she was resourceful and dragged out camping gear to cook on.

When my great grandmother wouldn't answer her phone, my grandparents made a trip to her apartment building a few blocks away to make sure she was okay. She came to the door dressed in layers of clothes and her bathrobe.

When Interstate 990 was finally clear, my sister and I drove home to Middleport late Friday afternoon where my parents and little sisters were keeping warm with the blessings of a generator. Along the way, the ghostlike images of rows of unopened business and blackened stoplights made me feel less cut off from the world, as we had been for the previous 24 hours. At the few gas stations open, the line of cars extended far into the street.

As we drove farther from Buffalo, the snow was already melting and in many areas the colored leaves were still attached to the trees, giving the impression of two seasons in one.

Although appointments and interviews had to be postponed, life continued as best it could. The Buffalo News subtly criticized local meteorologists in an article that ran on the front page, I stuck to my reading schedule for a Bible as Literature mid-term, and Saturday we found one of the only open restaurants in Lockport to celebrate my sister's 19th birthday with style and warm grub. And, at least the Sabres game went on as planned.

Whether or not you have regained power yet, hang in there and take the lull in your daily routine in stride, for inevitably things will return to normal.