keeping your enemies closer, or just not letting them leave

I'm getting kind of bored of my glasses. Any thoughts on what my next frames should look like, aside from not all bent and crooked like these?
But that's not why you're here, I know. You're here to read all about my lovely Christmas. I haven't had a shittier Christmas (even that year I got an alarm clock, or when I had the flu or whatever that was). Well, let's face it--December hasn't exactly been going well, what with programs with zero attendants, Buddy issues, and general crap-town problems. Which is why I was looking forward to being able to leave and see my family for a few days. Which is why this snowstorm was an especially large "fuck you", particularly due to the following things.
Thursday was still a state of emergency around here. So how come the local Fox affiliate news, the local NPR station news (who did, however, mention that there were still places closed "in spite of the weather"), weather.com, the state police website, and the road safety hotlines all failed to mention this? I may take risks sometimes that smart people don't, but I do know better than to drive during a state of emergency, provided SOMEONE TELLS ME.
Also, someone wanna explain to me the point of plowing interstates when the snow is allowed to just sit on the entrance and exit ramps to said interstates? What's the point of having clear roads if no one can get to 'em? And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I got stuck. Of course, it could be infinitely worse: I heard of a woman who was stuck in her car for over 23 hours, and at least one of the other cars stuck on my ramp had been there all day. But this isn't the sort of thing you want to think about when, instead of greeting your family at their door and attempting to get Brett to do his trick, you're fighting back tears and attempting to stay on the plowed part of the road, a task made a whole lot harder when no one has salted yet, because plowing to get rid of snow only winds up revealing the inch or so of ice underneath. Who plows and doesn't salt? Why am I paying municipal taxes again? Especially since, several days later, my street still has not been salted, and most of the cross streets I need to use haven't been touched.
Christmas Eve was spent making sure Johnny wasn't throwing up anymore, trying to figure out why he had been in the first place, giving up on keeping the boys out of the tree, watching the first season of The O.C. (more on that later), and desperately trying to pretend it wasn't Christmas Eve, which I kind of like even better than Christmas itself, what with tree-putting-up and no poorly disciplined small cousins.
On Christmas, the work friend fiance (these would be the same people who loaned me the car when Buddy had the water pump issues, and who pulled me out of the on-ramp. I think it's getting to the point where, if I call Becca, she just assumes emergency) picked me up and I spent Christmas dinner with them. This was as nice as spending Christmas with a group of people you've never met before when you were hoping for your family and hate crying in front of strangers can be. That's not a criticism, I swear.
Sunday I watched more TV-on--DVD and had a lovely conversation with Alison Farinacci's grandmother. Alison is this friend of mine from college. She was the second person I met at Pitt (does Janice count, since I technically met her the weekend before our advising session?); we were roommates for 3 semesters and neighbors for a summer; we worked together for awhile; in short, great friends. She came up to Philadelphia for New Year's when I was living there, and then she fell off the face of the earth. Her number has been disconnected. Her parents have a new number, that I don't have. However, the grandmother has my number now, and hopefully she'll call. I miss the girl. And as I'm learning more and more, particularly here in Holeville, silly is hard to find.
Barring a tsunami (yeesh, it's hard to feel sorry for yourself when over 21,000 people are dead from one natural disaster, but I've been perservering), New Year's will be spent in Louisville.