Ho Ho Snow!

I work until midnight and try to be sound asleep by 1:00 a.m.  I was never a morning person to begin with, but I am old now and creaky like the tin-man in the mornings.  That puts the following story into context.

5:30 a.m.:  My husband flips on the television to check the weather report.  Essentially, it said, “BAD BAD BAD SNOW SNOW SNOW ACCIDENTS DON’T GO OUT”.

6:04 a.m.:  He leaves for work.  I think to myself how strange it is that I didn’t receive a phone call from the school.  This is the first year the school has automated phone calls telling us when there is a late start or cancellation.  I pick up the phone.  “No line,” it says.  This means . . .

6:05 a.m.:  I stomp downstairs to the teenagers’ room to angrily plug the phone modem back into the wall.  Several weeks ago, I rearranged their furniture and inadvertently left the phone modem plug unguarded.  (It’s complicated.)  At least three times, our phone service has been interrupted for HOURS because the modem’s been unplugged.

6:07 a.m.:  Listen to voice mail.  Two hour school delay.  Okay than.  My kindergartener hasn’t been to school all week.  I go back to bed.

7:00 a.m.:  Phone call from husband telling me he heard on the radio that school was canceled.  I turn t.v. back on to see and it still says “2 hour delay.”  I call the school.  It’s a two hour delay.  I go back to bed.

. . . now, I can’t be sure, but I think I may have answered the phone a few more times.  I don’t know, but at 10 a.m., I came downstairs to see my son off to school.  I asked if he planned to take his display board to school so he could finish his social studies project.  He said no, he wouldn’t have time to work on it.  And off he went.

I cleaned up the kitchen, made oatmeal, watched “The View” while I ate my oatmeal, went upstairs to put away six baskets of laundry, agreed to take my daughter to her grandma’s house to visit. . . and the phone rang.  My son, asking me to bring his stuff for the project.  No problem since I’m taking my daughter to Grandma’s house anyway.  But. . . a problem because I haven’t showered, I’m not dressed, I still need to transcribe the letter written by my great-great-uncle for the project . . . and arrive at the school within 30 minutes.

My weird, leisurely morning turned into a wacky race, made treacherous by the packed snow and ice on my driveway and neighborhood loop.  However, I barely slid leaving my neighborhood and the busier roads were wet, not icy.  I dropped off the materials, dropped off my daughter, went to the grocery store for some provisions (my daughter begged for hot dogs for dinner), then returned home in time to work for four hours.

I interrupted my work shift to pick up my daughter.  Normally, it’s a three minute drive.  Today, it took me at least five minutes to back out of my driveway which was slick with newly fallen snow.  It’s only a slight incline, enough to make riding a tricycle down it quite exciting when you’re two years old.  Still.  It was scary trying to back out and I almost gave up but I pressed the pedal to the metal and vroomed my way up (after first sliding sideways and getting stuck a few times).

Then I slid my way out of to the main road which was quickly accumulating snow. I couldn’t make it up my mom’s driveway, so sort of backed up and slipped into the neighbor’s driveway, parking mostly in the dead-end road.  The three minute trip took twenty.  I was so relieved to be back at home.

I warned my husband when he called from his work thirty minutes away.  He thought maybe he’d stay at a hotel–and I thought that wasn’t a bad idea, but he drove home anyway, taking ninety minutes to drive what normally takes thirty minutes.  He will turn around and go back tomorrow at 6:00 a.m.

Five or six inches of snow fell from during the afternoon and tomorrow the high temperature is supposed to be 27 degrees–so we won’t be going anywhere.  The roads are a disaster.

Funny how the weather made decisions for us–we won’t be going to church on Sunday (Seattle’s bad, too) and my daughter will not get to sing on Christmas Eve at church (more snow predicted for Christmas Eve).  When it snows in this area, we are paralyzed because the hilly roads combined with inadequate plowing and treatment become impassable.

I am trying to embrace the jumbled up plans.  I baked a double-batch of Chex party mix yesterday–which is gone today.  I allow the kids to make cocoa for themselves and whatever kids appear in my house.  I am doing my best to not freak out about the constantly open doors and snow tracks on the carpet.  The kids love this, despite snowballs in the face.

And tomorrow, there will be no school.  And then for two weeks there will be no school.  But we have heat and we have some presents stashed in the closet and we have the promise of Global warming which I hope takes effect immediately.

p.s. I hate the song “Feliz Navidad.” It’s playing on Jay Leno’s show at the moment. HATE.