AUGUST 23

Whether you accumulate fine antiques or you’re just a thrift shop whore, you can replace the dynamics of human companionship with a house full of crap. Take Nancy McMichael (pictured), former assistant to the chief curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, who discovered a void in her existence that could only be filled by snow globes. “The snow dome I found just struck a chord,” she claims, after a vocational voyage arroused this unparalleled passion. In six years, she amassed over 6,000 of these “microcosms of it all,” and in 1990 published Snowdomes, a book full of more groan-evoking snow puns than a night at Studio 54. Then of course there’s Snow Biz, her quarterly newsletter, which plunges into topics like “What to do when your plug leaks.” So if you’re another lonely globe collector singing the blues (because snowbody know the trouble you’ve seen) search for the dome of your dreams at “Snowfair ’97.” The swap meet and collectors’ convention lasts from noon-2:30 p.m. at Escandalo, 2122 P St. NW. $22. (202) 234-7484. (Elisa Nader)