1) 2/3 (myself being half of that 2/3) (=1) (there is the extent of my knowledge retention from high school math) of Colman's Well carpooled to rehearse at the Renaissance Man's house last evening. A few flakes were falling as the Tall Bass and I left Brattleboro, but five minutes later on the highway we were driving through a blizzard. We should have turned around and gone home, but the Renaissance Man is leaving (hopefully) for Ireland today so we really wanted to gather and sing some new stuff since our concerts last weekend, and take care of some business planning. You know, the stuff dumb musicians prioritize when they're too used to driving through all kinds of crap in order to get to the rehearsals and gigs that allow them to be musicians. (Note: I don't really think of myself as a musician yet, but I am sort of along for the ride here.) So, on we went.
2) Of course, by the time we got on the highway to come back north later in the evening, the road was covered in several inches of snow, nothing had been plowed, it was impossible to see much beyond the front of the car, and there was crazy snow blowing straight at us. If you stared straight into it (which I could do because I wasn't driving) it felt a little like being on Space Mountain at Disneyworld. Except actually kind of trippy and scary. The drive, normally 20 minutes, took us over an hour. And then he stayed over at my house rather than risk (at best) several more hours (normally 20 minutes) driving on the state highway the rest of the way back to where he lives, or (at worst) death.
And then this morning the guy at the insurance agency across the street, in whose lot we left the Tall Bass' car because there is NOWHERE else to put a car in a snowstorm in this town, screamed (I am not kidding) very un-nice things at him this morning as he was trying to get his car out at 8am. I have never heard anything like it. You'd think that on a morning when our little Vermont town wakes up to 9 inches of snow under half an inch of ice, with sleet still falling, everything closed, and travel totally treacherous, that people would be a little flexible and understanding instead of being, oh, HUGE ASSHOLES. It makes me so sad to be that wrong about people.
3) But before that, we got up and looked out the window to see that the huge snowbanks in front of my house had spread out to completely block in the narrow tunnel we've managed to keep cleared out so that we can get out the door. The view from my front door was this (and, to be clear, all space to the right and left of this frame had five feet of snow in it also):
Doh.But then later it looked like this (that's me shoveling; my housemate took this photo). Go me!:
4) When I said "everything closed" in town, I meant "everything BUT my organization, despite the fact that our office is up in the hills on a dirt road that sucks even when the rest of the roads in town are OK." Right. Sure, they gave us a two-hour delayed opening. But still.
So then, after shoveling for over an hour and deciding there was no way I'd ever get my car out, and if I did I did not feel like risking my life to drive to work, I came in and called a friend from work and went on a tirade about having to go into work in this weather (mind you, I quite like my job and certainly would have liked to be at work today and gotten things done. I just don't like skidding off the road and dying). Which he let me ramble about for a while, and then cut in to say "oh, I just got a message that we decided to close for the day after all." In other words, OK, MonkeyHippy, chill out.
Woohoo! Snow day!
5) And then the sleet started mixing with rain, and all the storm drains were iced over (or MIA since October, because they're permanently buried under snow) and my street (a main thoroughfare through town, mind you) had bigger and bigger puddles building up, until suddenly the puddles were multiple inches of flowing water with nowhere to go, and it was coming up to the undercarriages of the cars, and the city had to send out public works guys and large equipment to try to clear the drains. Which they did, an effort involving only a dozen town employees, half a dozen pieces of huge equipment, and a couple of hours of trying to find the drains and intermittently closing off the street. I am not kidding. I'd hate to see how many city employees and backhoes it takes to change a light bulb.
I don't know if you can really get a sense of it in these photos, but trust me, it was NUTS. There was a lake in the street right in front of my house. If I'd been video-taping it I'm sure it could be on one of those Weather Channel storm specials.But now the day is almost done. And I almost feel like it was productive. I certainly got my exercise, what with two hour-long snow/sleet/slush/water-shoveling sessions. Have you ever shoveled water? That was a new one for me. And hopefully tomorrow my car wheels won't be encased in ice (hence the shoveling water).
And life will go on, and we will say, for (at least) the 17th time this winter, "wow, I don't know if we can handle another storm like that."
1 comment:
Shoveling water sucks -- my arms are killing me and all through dinner I was trying to figure out why I am so tired. Oh, right. Shoveling water. And slush. Crazy!! Glad you're still alive. :)
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