Sunday, March 29, 2009

Crazy weather

What a funny weekend! From the middle of last week, we kept hearing that we were going to get a snowstorm any day, but it seemed like it was going to miss us. The weather got cold toward the end of the week--much colder than it had been--but we didn't have much, if any, precipitation. We were thinking that the weather folks got it wrong, again.

Bob was going in to work at 1:00 on Saturday, so I wasn't in any hurry to leave the house. We got up fairly early and puttered around, then about the time that he went up to get ready for work, I laid down and fell asleep again. I woke up around 1:00 and looked outside--it was starting to rain. Even though I would have much preferred to stay home, I had to go out. I had to go to the post office to mail some Ebay and Etsy orders, and I had to pick up a book at the library. Those were my two main errands, with the post office being the most important.

By the time I had dressed and left the house, the rain was turning to freezing rain; the library building is being redone and is temporarily housed in a shopping center that has kind of a wind tunnel effect; when I was walking through the parking lot the sleet was hitting my face so hard it felt like little needles. Very uncomfortable.

The streets were getting slick, too. I spent a lot of time watching in my rear view mirror to be sure that the people behind me were going to stop. Not that I could control that, but I guess I just like to know . . . So I went to the library, and the post office, and the bank, and by now it was starting to snow. I needed to get some groceries, but that was really all I had to do, so I went to Target and figured I'd head straight home after that.

I was probably in Target about a half hour; by the time I came out it was practically a blizzard. I crept home, and was very glad to drive into the garage! It was only 3:30 or so, much earlier than I'm usually home on a Saturday, but I figured better safe than sorry. I took a bubble bath, put on my pajamas, and settled in for a quiet evening playing Second Life. I ran into a couple of friends and talked for awhile, then at 6:30 the lights went off. They came back on, then went off again, then came back on, but I figured I'd better shut the computer down just in case. I unplugged the power cord, and the cable modem, and then the power went back off, and this time it didn't come back on.

It was still light outside, and the snow magnified the light--I'd guess we must have gotten around 6 inches. It was beautiful, but weird -- snow like this in March, nearly April? The trees had already blossomed, I was a little worried about the pear tree in the front yard. I lit a bunch of candles, went upstairs and found a flashlight, got my phone, and waited to see what would happen. I had planned on cooking pasta for Bob when he got home at 9:30 or so, but if I didn't have any electricity, that wasn't going to happen. I figured I'd fix him a tuna sandwich or something if we didn't have power by the time he got home.

I couldn't quite figure out what to do with myself. I read for awhile on my iPhone, but I didn't want to drain the battery in case the power didn't come back on. I could have watched a DVD on the laptop, but same thing--I didn't want to drain the battery, although there wouldn't be much I could do with it anyway, if the power didn't come back on. Without power, the router wasn't working, so I guess it wouldn't have hurt anything to run it down. But I didn't like to do that.

I knew I had a booklight somewhere, but I couldn't remember where; reading with a flashlight was less than ideal. If I knew where any of Bob's headlamps were, I could have gotten one of those . . . It's just something that comes up so rarely, I wasn't really prepared. I did have a small flashlight in my purse, though, and knew right where to get it, so I wasn't completely unprepared.

I guess it was about 8:30 when the power came back on. I rushed into the kitchen to put the pasta on to boil, and brown some ground beef. I cooked the beef, threw in some tomato sauce and mushrooms, mixed in the pasta and put cheese on top, and stuck it in the oven. I figured even if the power went off again, if I could get the casserole at least heated up, Bob would have something to eat when he got home. But the power stayed on, we had dinner, and all was well.

The snow is almost completely gone by now. The trees don't look any the worse for wear, and I suppose the extra moisture will be good for the grass. I didn't leave the house at all today. I worked on Second Life stuff for awhile, then worked on marketing for the jewelry shop, making a FaceBook page and uploading a bunch of photo examples of my work. Then I sat down in front of the television and watched an old movie (Jane Fonda in "Sunday in New York") and made earrings. I'm kind of on a roll with the jewelry again, so I didn't want to stop.

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