Today is the first day of winter and I am already worn out with winter weather. Last week there were two bad driving days. The first caught me off guard. It was only 3″ but it was timed badly and I found out my Hyundai is not my Subaru. I was squirreling all over the road. The next bad snow was 3 days later and it was so forecasted that the boss was asking us if we were prepared. I planned to work from home so I didn’t get out. We got about 7″ of snow that day.
I took Friday off so we could go to Fort Wayne for our holiday visit. Sometime during the week I decided to change it to be Sat-Sun-Mon. One because Hollace was already off on Monday, two-the last day of 2008 billing was Friday and there was a lot of work trying to get billed by then and third-I knew weather might be coming in. Good call.
While we got the snow, Indiana got a major ice storm. One which knocked out the electricity to Dorothy’s. It was so bad that over half of the residents on Fort Wayne lost power. They were saying that it wouldn’t be restored until Wednesday.
What to do, what to do?
I got packed up and planned on going down there anyway. I looked into hotels and we would go down and rescue Dorothy from the dark and cold.
Then her phones went dead too. We called the neighbors and all of their phones were down.
We talked to Aunt Geri and she told Dorothy if she gets cold, she could open the back garage door (no electricity means the 4’11” 85 year old woman couldn’t open her electric garage door opener) and start her car to keep warm. RAW nearly had a cow when he heard that advice.
Since we couldn’t reach Dorothy by phone, he called the sheriff’s office for them to do a wellness check.
She was ok (I would like to think she wouldn’t of taken Geri’s advice but sometimes I am not so sure) but told the cop she was going to hang out for the night and go somewhere tomorrow. They asked if she wanted them to move her car to the driveway so she could get out. She said no. She told me later it was becasue she didn’t want any branches to fall on her car. I don’t think she thought that also meant she was trapped there.
Shortly after the visit, RAW’s cousin Theresa came over and rescued her. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. I think Geri (Theresa’s mom called her) For some reason we didn’t think of Theresa for help. Theresa is rich and lives in a big fancy house. We felt good that Dorothy was in good hands and then canceled our trip down especially in light that the power might not come back on until long after we left. She was in better hands at Theresa.
We kept trying the phones and eventually they came back on but it wasn’t until we heard the answering machine Saturday evening that we knew the power was back on. Today she went back home. Today was friggin cold!
Now we are glad we didn’t go this weekend. The temperatures didn’t go above zero all days with 35 below wind chills. I never left my robe today.
Because we didn’t go to Fort Wayne this weekend, I was able to catch up on my holiday stuff. Got the cards done and out; the calendars printed, cut up and packaged; gifts to the family wrapped; the photo pencil cans and photo ink pens done; and the rest of the house decorated.
I am still off tomorrow so it is off to the stores to finish up the shopping. It is still suppose to be cold but it will be better than Tuesday (when I go back to work) when we are expecting another freakin snow storm! Ug. I wish I was working tomorrow instead of Tuesday but I better just suck it up and go as planned before I piss someone off with all my changing. Actually I would rather take my Monday and put it on my Friday. It sucks that they gave us Wednesday Xmas eve as a holiday instead of the Friday after a holiday like they always have before. I didn’t take it off because I assumed everyone else in my department would want to take it off. H. will be in on that day but too but I have a sneaking feeling she will be sick on Tuesday because of the snow. She had a near miss accident last week driving in that snow. I think I will try the train and shuttle bus on Tuesday. I hope I don’t miss that bus back to the train station, that is my big fear.