Well now.
Tuesday afternoon I was on my way to work, it had been snowing all day. I resolved to be a good
little trainee and get to work, nevermind the winter weather closing in. I was overcome with a feeling
that I've only felt a few times in my life. Whenever my intuition screams at me, I try to listen.
"Turn around and go home, you can still go home. Your car isn't built for this. Call in. This job isn't worth it."
I wasn't even a mile from my home and I turned around and called in. The weather got worse. It usually
takes me 45 minutes to drive to the training store. In the horrible storm that was moving in, It would
have taken at least 2 hours.
Having called in, and wanting a partner in crime, I called on Le Madame Buffalo. She braved the wild and came over and crocheted. I got a craving for chocolate cookies. It took me about an hour and a half to make some vegan chocolate chip cocoa cookies, but they were well worth it. I have frozen the rest of them, as having them ready-to-eat, is too tempting. Dusty
stayed for a while, and was gracious(as always) and didn't complain as I fussed over cookies and talked on the phone with my wonderful staffmaker. She left late in the evening, foiling my plot to have her snowed in with me. Damnable.
I go to bed around midnight, and get woke up, "Linda, It's six o'clock in the morning, we are under a level three snow emergency, the heat is out and I need your help." I wake up. It's still dark, but there's lots to do. Candles to light, water to pour into as many containers as possible, get the little radio working so that we can hear the news, get all the blankets in one spot, and try to go out and get the car running. Lady's car is completely frozen. Chiselling for a half hour just to free the drivers side door and start the car did little to help thaw it. Quickly walking around my car, we discover, it's not going anwhere either. I call off another day.
The news says, power is out for 196,000 people, and they don't have a clue as to when it will be back on. Traffic lights are out all over the city, trees are falling on power lines from being overburdened with ice. It gets colder in the house. We hunker down in blankets, Lady sleeps, I start crocheting. Troy was to come get Lady on Thursday after he got out of work, and I will stay in Columbus because I am supposed to work on Friday. Still no word on when power will be restored. Lady and I go out and dig out her car, after half an hour of chiseling with a knife and an ice scraper with the heat and defrost running, the car is mostly clear. The passenger side door still won't open. I decide to go with Lady to Pittsburgh, and call in on Friday, The weather has not lessened, my car will not make it, and the roads have not been cleared very well.
Lady drives us to Pittsburgh. I work myself into complete anxiety and nausea as I fear that I may have lost my job for calling off 3 days during training. But after getting a hold of the Area Manager, I explain the situation to him, and he seems sympathetic. No mentioning of demotion or termination. I can breathe again.
Coincidentally, Pittsburgh had not an inkling of snow. Not that I saw. It was just cold as fuck. Columbus was still Ten Degrees colder.Brrr.
After Lady and Troy cleared out the last bits of their old Pittsburgh townhome, and we drive Three and a half hours home, we unload the cars, and I finally make some calls. My sister tells me that Glema did not make the journey to Columbus for Christmas because of the weather.
Lady taught me how to knit on Christmas eve. She showed me one way and then I figured out the other way. I am working on a scarf as my first knitting project. It's truly trying my patience, but I am enjoying it anyways.
I don't want to say that Christmas was bad. It wasn't bad. Just didn't really feel like Christmas. It felt just like any other day. Nothing special. No magic. There was some holiday magic earlier in the week as Lady and Troy and her daughers and granchildren all gathered for their exchanges. It was really sweet.
I still have tomorrow off. I am going to attempt to thaw out my car. Troy is driving both Lady and I to work on Monday, or I will drive lady's car, my car just isn't built for this horrible weather. It seems to me that Columbus just doesn't have the roads as cleared as they usually do. Maybe it's just because I live on the other side of town. But it's got to be bad news when the mass transportation COTA bus stops traffic because it's jacknifed.
The other thing I am going to do tomorrow, is relax. I just want to unwind. I feel stressed and a week behind.
Hope that you are all having a wonderful holiday.
Love you
Merry Christmas to you!
I hope you are able to dig yourself out of the snow and ice.