Oh what a night

Well, the house is still standing. In fact, all is peaceful and quiet and unplowed. Last night I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz--that the house was going to blow away! The TV weathermen were saying it's the worst storm they've seen, and it was bad. But I'd still vote for the one back in the mid-80's where we couldn't get out of the apartment, I had a 4' drift of snow inside of the apartment that had been driven through the window sides (the window was covered with plastic for the winter, too) that I had to shovel into the bathtub. The snow stayed in the bathtub for 3-4 days because we had no heat. People with cars (I didn't have one at that time) were out looking for their car by poking a broom handle down into the snow. We didn't get plowed out for those 3 or 4 days and I had to heat things up by candle for us to eat. Now that was a bad storm.

This storm wasn't as bad is that, but bad enough, and it's being called a blizzard. I was listening to the police radio last night and heard all about cops getting stuck, UPS and semi-trucks and a charter bus and lines of cars all stuck. For one episode they brought the people to stay in some assisted living place that was nearby and had room. The snow plows were pulled off the road at 6 PM and the TV crawer-thing on the bottom said that emergency rescue teams: fire, ambulance and police, might not be able to reach you in on emergency. They did have some snowmobiles out for rescue work, I heard over the police radio.

I had a minor emergency with my downstairs door. I had opened it to let the dog out, which she quickly did and turned to come back in before getting blown away. Then the door wouldn't shut! I was standing down there barefoot with strong wind and snow pouring into the basement. I tried to brush the door frame with a broom, slam slam slam--the door still wouldn't shut. Then I rushed to find a screwdriver and had to kneel and pick the ice away from the hinges before the door would finally close. I was getting scared that I wasn't going to be able to get it shut! My hands and feet were red and tingly, the carpet in the basement by the door, very very wet, and the basement was cold. So I cranked up the heat down there for the poor little animals and cleaned up. Yikes, what if I hadn't been able to get the door shut?

I actually drove to work over the interstate bridge yesterday morning, which was also pretty scary--windy and icy. Only two of us made it in to work (we were required by a new policy to show up, the old policy said that if the city buses stopped running, we'd be closed, too) but got sent home after an hour. So I worked from home yesterday, a rare treat! Today will be the same, so I'd better get to work now! Have a good day and a wonderful weekend!