Snow

The third storm in 7 days arrived Thursday afternoon with a vengeance. After it was all said and done, we ended up with close to a foot of snow. Global warming my Auntie Fanny!

The Young One and I had it easy though. Her school chorus and band were giving a performance for grandparents in the afternoon. School would let out at 10:50AM and the chorus and band would have a pizza party before the concert. She called before I even got home from dropping her off in the morning that they would still have their half day and be getting out at 10:50AM, but the concert was cancelled due to the threat of bad weather. I was supposed to go to Lambie's for her annual calligraphy luncheon. I called her and cancelled out. She rather thought the luncheon would have to cancel because of the weather. Lambie had been watching the morning news and said all the area schools were releasing around noon. She rescheduled the luncheon for next Friday.

I picked The Young One up at school and we stopped at the post office on the way home. I put the trash barrel in the garage (they came really early) and got the mail. Got in the house took my coat off and it started to flurry. I blinked and a few minutes later it was snowing, and snowing , and snowing. It snowed at a rate of 2" per hour.

Himself called around 1:30 to tell me his school had let out. He was sitting somewhere on Rte9 not moving. All the schools and businesses had let out at the same time. By then it was snowing heavily and because of all the traffic, none of the road equipment could get through to clear and treat the roads.

He called me every hour to give me an update on his progress. I'm so glad he had the phone with him because he had initially balked at the idea of having a cell phone. By 5:30 pm, he finally made it to Framingham and was able to get on the Pike where the traffic was moving a little bit better, not much, but better. At 6:30 he had made it to the Millbury exit, moved down the exit ramp and 146 was at a standstill. Seems there was an accident and because of all the traffic, a tow truck couldn't be brought in to clear the wreck. Finally the DPW had to remove one of the cement barriers so the tow truck could do its job.

I had been outside twice to shovel the end of the driveway where the plow had pushed the snow so Himself could get his car in. In between, I paced, watched a DVD with The Young One, made a variation on chocolate dipped pretzels, stress ate the pretzels, paced some more and worked my way up to a headache. An essay about a penny at On The Write Path (scroll down to read The Gift of Restoration) really helped to put thinkgs into perspective. Thanks for sharing that with me, Erica, because the thought helped to calm me down and give up the control of circumstances beyond me. I still had a headache, but I didn't work myself up to a full blown migraine. Need to find a better way to channel the stress eating though.

I was nearly finished with the second dig when I heard a toot toot and saw Himself's car coming down the road. I was never so glad to hear that little toot toot. It was 8:30PM and his normal hour commute had taken him 7! Two of those hours just sitting on the road a few miles from home waiting for the accident to be cleared.

I'm glad The Young One had a teacher's inservice day and no school for her today. Worcester had a two hour delay, but I would have kept The Young One home. I could imagine what it was like at her school. The road to her school is a narrow, winding road up the side of a mountain. It can be treacherous on a good day never mind with a slick of ice and snow on the pavement. Got to love parochial schools built on the top of a mountain. That way if you get killed at the high elevation, you're closer to God.

Himself said the roads this morning were icy and like driving on a washboard. He had to go into school because he had exams. Said a lot of his students were emailing they couldn't get in because of the roads. He's going to have another long day. Hopefully, he won't have another nightmare of a commute.

The Young One and I just came in from clearing the snow away from my car. I broke the good shovel and had to use the crummy one. After lunch, 3 ibuprofen with a Pepsi chaser, and a rest, the Young One and I will head over to my elderly neighbor, Prissy, to clear the snow from her car and front walk. She has someone plow the drive way, thank Gawd, as her driveway is a long circular drive.

Another bigger storm is headed this way for Sunday. Is it August, yet?