The Slice: Lilacs no longer flour of choice for our fair city

When Cheney resident Jobi Aballa came to America from Ethiopia this summer to marry a Spokane-area woman he had met in Africa, he hadn’t seen snow.

He has seen it now.

“It’s something really surprising,” he said. “It’s kind of like flour coming from heaven.”

Only colder.

He was so amazed by the recent weather, he phoned a friend back in Ethiopia and tried to describe it – an effort he admits met with only limited success.

A call to a cousin who lives in Minnesota went a bit more smoothly.

Aballa, who turns 27 next week, plans to enroll at Eastern Washington University. Meantime, he has some caretaker responsibilities at the apartment complex where he and his wife, Rachel, reside.

As a result, he has learned how to operate a snow-thrower. “I like that machine,” he said.

■Blending lyrics: The Slice heard about the holiday song stylings of a girl who is not quite 3.

Recently her grandmother heard her singing, “Par-rum-pa-pum-pum, me and my drum/Ho-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!”

Maybe that kid suspects that Santa is a pirate, or that he occasionally gets tired of cookies and milk.

■Reviewing last week’s local TV coverage of the big snowfall: More than a few readers used the term “overkill.”

Others praised the reports.

■Mary Harnetiaux has an idea for a new city slogan: “Spokane: Near nature. Near perfectly impossible to get off your street till the snowplow comes.”

■VCR time travel: “My husband Dan is a big fan of the original series of ‘Star Trek,’ ” wrote Karen Burgard of Spokane Valley. “He was watching an episode a couple of weeks ago when I walked into the room.

“There was a weather warning racing across the screen for a tornado. I looked outside at a clear sky and asked him what it was about.”

Her husband answered, “Oh, Paul Douglas is whining about the weather again.”

Huh?

“Then it hit me,” wrote Burgard. “Paul Douglas was the weatherman in Minneapolis and Dan was watching an 18-year-old videotape.”

■Speaking of videotapes: How many people around here have shelves full of them but never watch any because they only use DVDs now? What’s going to become of all those tapes?

■Slice answer: Gardner Bailey said he can name eight words Inland Northwesterners have for snow. None is printable.

■Today’s Slice question: If you knew 10 days ago what you know now about our December weather, how would you have planned differently?