snow.

"New Orleans is one of the two most ingrown, self-obsessed little cities in the United States. (The other is San Francisco)" - Nora Ephron

It's true. We are. I find that, far more than most places that exhibit some sort of civic or regional pride, New Orleans really and truly loves being New Orleans. We wrap our sweaty, bead-draped arms around ourselves and hang on for dear life. We memorialize every single bit of our culture, never content to let even the smallest things fall out of our collective memory. I had this conversation with someone a while ago about the local cult fascination with K&B, (for proof, click here) a New Orleans-based drug store chain that went out of business in the 90's.

ME: "Why do people always talk about K&B like it was this great, amazing thing?"
OTHER NEW ORLEANIAN: "What are you talking about? It's K&B!"
ME: "Yeah, but it was just a drug store. There was nothing inherently special about it, it was just a New Orleans business."
OTHER NEW ORLEANIAN: "Yeah, but...it's K&B!"

We don't discriminate. We do this sort of thing not only with the cool stuff, but with the annoying/stupid/horrible things too. It's kind of like groupthink complaining. And it used to be that one of our favorite things to complain about was the fact that it never snows in New Orleans.

Enter Katrina. Then, by a miracle that may have made even the staunchest Nawlins atheist tilt their head, we got snow on Christmas Day of 2005. Angels sang. Trumpets sounded. People went crazy and made tiny 6-inch snowmen on the tops of their cars, the only place the snow would stick for more than a second. It was, by all accounts, the most grateful snow to ever fall.

But it was over in less than an hour, and the next two winters saw a return to the 70-degree norm that New Orleans was used to cursing over their Christmas ham. But hey, what did we expect? It was a miracle, after all. Let's not get greedy here.

But then, lo and behold, on the third year following the Post-Katrina Flurry of the Century, we get this craziness. Snow again! This time for over three hours, generating piles of wet, slushy fluff capable of producing snowmen that were at least as tall as a first grader. And for a little while, just a couple of hours, New Orleans got lost in the snow. For once, the city that is the self-analytical equivalent of an emo kid sitting alone in the back of the school bus forgot about itself. It indulged in a little escapism, a little costuming. It could have been the frozen Artic tundra outside for all we knew!

It's good to widen the scope every now and again. To rejoice in the unfamiliar and leave your problems to lie for a little bit underneath the snow bank. Merry Christmas indeed, New Orleans. You look good in white.