Snownami 2013

Oh, it looks so pretty! Until it attacks you, that is...

If you’ve seen me on Facebook or Twitter any time over the past two weeks, you know we received some snow. Or, more aptly put, a shit-ton of snow. Missouri prefers a debilitating ice storm to a blizzard, so when we get a decent-sized snowstorm every few years, we’re out of practice. It always seems to come as surprise.

At this point in time, you might be saying to your computer, “Well, Sarah, you know they have this thing called the ‘weather’. You could check it, you know. It comes on the TV and the internet, and you can even get it on your phone. And then you could plan accordingly.”

And you would be right. Except, the weather people lied two weeks ago, when the first (yes, there’s been more than one) snowstorm hit. What was supposed to be three to six inches ended up being thundersnow (have you ever seen that?) that dropped a foot on us in a period of a few hours.

You would think, with my Type-A, only child, perfectionism, I would have been prepared for a snowstorm. You would be wrong. Let me illustrate by highlighting some major points in my day, two Thursdays ago, when ‘Storm Q’ hit:

8:00am           I go to work. The boys are out of school for the impending snowstorm, but I plan to work this morning. There’s nothing happening, and not a flake to be seen. I have a meeting to set up at 11:00—which is also when the heavy stuff it supposed to hit—and as soon as I get everyone situated, I can head back home. I live three miles away from campus, so it’s not like I’ll be making a trek through the wilderness in a blizzard like Pa in Little House on the Prairie.

I have just destined myself to suffer, by the way.

9:00am           Huh. It’s starting to snow.

10:00am         Damn. It’s really snowing. Good thing the plow trucks are going by! If they keep the roads okay, I should still be good in an hour or so.

11:15am         I am heading out the door. There is snow everywhere. I’m thinking we may already have six inches on the ground. I don’t know what the plow trucks have been doing when they drove by, but it doesn’t look like this road has been plowed at all. What the heck? Was that lightening?

11:30am         I watch traffic come to a creeping halt on the road home. At first I think it’s because the wind is gusting so bad that visibility is virtually zero. Then when the wind lets up for a bit, I see that a plow ahead of me has run off the road. The guys get out and start directly all of us behind them to turn around.

11:45am         I am now heading AWAY from my house. I can’t go down this road to the right; three people have spun out. I cannot go down these two roads to the left; people are stuck. Traffic is now not moving to the north or to the south. K calls me to see where I am.

12:30pm         Why didn’t I fill the car with gas? Why didn’t I bring my cell phone charger? Why does Ant keep texting me asking if I can see all the snow? I am in the middle of the damn snownami, kid! K calls me to see where I am.

1:00pm           I try to pull the car off in a parking lot so I can walk back to work. I’ve just received a text saying the campus is in full closure. J’s work is closing, and he’s pushing people out of the mall parking lot and onto the road because there’s about nine inches on the ground and no one can drive.  I am still going to wrong way, if ‘going’ is what you call it when you’re not moving. The parking lot maneuver didn’t work. Now I’m stuck. K calls me to see where I am.

1:30pm           I am running low on gas, I have been at this shit for over two hours, I haven’t moved down the road, I am soaking wet from digging out the wheels, but by God, I AM NO LONGER STUCK. I did it, bitches! Well, actually six undergrads took pity on me, and helped push my two ton car out. Remind me to never pull into a parking lot, again. K calls me to see if I’m still stuck.

2:00pm           J: I am coming to get you!

Me: NO! Save yourself! Someone has to live for the children!

J: NO! I will rescue you! I will come and get you!

Me: You will get stuck just like me! You will be stuck for hours!

J: Oh, that’s okay. I filled up my car and grabbed the phone charger this morning.

Bastard.

2: 15pm          We are moving! We are moving! I am going to make it to this next intersection and they will have it plowed and I can start driving in the right direction and I will make it home, and I can meet J at the grocery store parking lot and we can caravan home together and I might even find an open gas station!

2:30pm           Huh, this road hasn’t been plowed. Thank goodness no one else is on it! I’ll make it through the hills as long as I don’t have to stop! K calls me to see where I am.

2:32pm           Oh. My. God. That hill is like a damn parking lot. There must be thirty cars spun out on that damn thing. Most of them are Jeeps and SUVs…

2:35pm           J: I am going to walk to where you are.

Me: You are going to walk a mile to me, in the blizzard, with a shovel? Because I don’t need you so much, but we sure as hell could use a bigger shovel to get some of these cars out of the middle of the road.

3:00pm           We’ve pushed enough cars out of the way that we now have a decent path to get up the hill. I have traction control and all-wheel drive and a transmission I can switch to manual. And now? Now I have my shovel-wielding husband with me. We’ll leave his car at the grocery store, and get ourselves home.

3:10pm:          We clear the hill, and come to the next hill, where everyone we’ve just pushed out has gotten stuck, again. You have got to be kidding me! J’s driving, and so he whips the car around in the middle of the road and starts going back the way we came.

3:12pm           Holy crap! More people have gotten stuck and have clogged up the spot we just freaking cleared! J whips the car around onto a side road that hasn’t been touched, but also is void of any other cars. K calls to see where we are.

3:25pm           Our street! Our street! I CAN SEE MY HOUSE FROM…Oh, no. No, dude in front of us, don’t stop. Don’t stop, don’t stop!

3:30pm           I have walked home—where the boys are shoveling the drive for us. I grab them to help get the car unstuck.

3:40pm           We get the car to the driveway, and we have to “unstuck” it again to get it IN the driveway.

3:45pm           This is my house! These are my children! These are our things! I will have dry clothes! And a hot bath! And beer! And I WILL MAKE SOUP!

3:50pm           I email my boss and tell her I’ll be working from home the next day. She writes back immediately and tells me that’s a great idea. I won’t have to drive in this crap for three more days!

At least this story has a happy ending, and no one in our town was seriously injured in the craziness. The news reported that several of the highways around us also had to shut down, and people were stuck on the roads in some places until nine that night. Also, this is the first of many wild snow stories we had over the past two weeks… During the next storm we lose power and INTERNET! I watched two trash trucks get stuck on our road. And, Sophie develops an elaborate ritual for going outside after falling through a snow bank…

An Hour in the Life Of…

These occurrences take place in the hour between 5pm and 6pm…

5:01: I realize it’s time to go home, but I’m in the middle of something, so I quickly try to wrap things p and head home. J has to work late, which means I have to handle dinner, dishes, homework, laundry and the associated household crap solo tonight. There’s no time to waste.

5:20: I’m booking it out of the office by now. I usually pick up Ant in about five minutes, so I’m running pretty far behind.

5:25: It usually only takes me a few minutes to get home, since we live like, three freaking miles from my work (the joys of small college town life), but traffic is backed up. Way backed up. Beyond ‘school is in session’ backed up—which isn’t even possible, since school is NOT in session.

5:30: I realize that I’m stuck in traffic because there’s a police standoff occurring right ahead of me, on the right. I’m going to have to drive through it. There’s camera crews setting up directly to my left. (You can actually read more about this over at Sprocket Ink today—the standoff that wasn’t really…)

5:40: I finally get to the school to pick up Ant. I’m late for my usual time, but not “LATE.” Thank goodness for small miracles. Why are the afterschool teachers holding an accident report? Why do they have such looks of consternation on their faces?

5:45: After school teacher is having a hard time coming up with the right words to describe the situation. Apparently Ant fell off the swings and had the wind knocked out of him, but, why did the other two children jump on him?

5:48: Apparently the other children thought he was dead and were attempting to resuscitate him, Grey’s Anatomy-style. Ant’s not truly injured, but apparently he found the face-slapping to illicit a response from him somewhat disquieting…

5:50: We’re driving by the nature trail when Mrs. Deer decides to jump out directly in front of my car. I cannot freaking stop in time! Son of an effing…

5:50:30: Mrs. Deer jumps back to the right side of the road. I bring the car to a squealing halt. I have a heart attack and die. I look to my right, and see several more deer (where there’s one, there’s more) staring at us.

They're cute until they try to attack you... Photo Source

5:51: Ant whispers to me, “Why are they staring at us, Momma? It’s creeping me out!” I notice the city bus climbing the hill behind us, and wonder if the driver can see me…

5:51:30: I punch the gas to avoid collision with bus or deer-kind, and get home as quickly as I can (about two minutes).

5:53: Ant and I run into the house, certain that the universe (or at the very least, the deer in the area) is trying to kill us. I lock all the doors and collapse on the couch.

5:54: K walks into the living room, glances at me, and asks, “Geez, what’s the matter with you?”

5:58: I make the conscious decision to forget doing anything of value this evening.

Vignettes: The Car

Note the name of the company. Photo Source

K will soon turn 15. Soon. Very soon. WAY TOO SOON. This means, in the state in which we live, that he will be driving on a graduated license. So, as I drive him around town and to school each morning, I give him advice. Pointers, if you will. He’s not very appreciative for a person who will triple my insurance premiums and be begging me for gas money in the very near future.

Me: So, I think the hardest part of driving when you’re young is parking. That’s what we’ll start with next month, you know. Parking. And pulling out of parking spaces.

K: Mom. Seriously?

Me: Yes! Think about it. You’re going in reverse. You want to reverse the way you are turning the wheel, because it’s backwards and all, but you don’t. You still turn the wheel the same way you would if you were going forward. Man, when I was your age, I was memorizing things like this! And which way to turn the signals—I kept trying to confuse that as well. Hell, during my driving test I almost had a panic attack about if I was turning the right signals on, or if I had messed it up in my head again.

K: Again?

Me: Shut up.

K: Again? Mom. No one but you would have anxiety over these types of things.

***

K won’t be practicing his driving skills in my car. Because my car is new. It’s the first new car we’ve ever owned. I don’t even know how to handle new cars, and all of their gadgets…

Last winter, on one of the three days that exhibited some semblance of winter weather (meaning ice, in MO—and as an aside, the lack of winter this year is still disconcerting to me) I was driving to work, and I was a mess.

Despite spending the first half of my childhood in Colorado, I hate driving in ice. This is because I actually know how to drive in ice, but I live in a college town filled with young people who don’t. Like the one who slowed to a stop in the middle of an icy hill, right in front of me, causing me to have to stop only partially uphill.

After a yelled conversation between the two of our cars and one more, we got him turned around and headed back down. It was now my turn to try to climb the icy hill. Steady foot on the gas, popping the brake, hands at ten and two… and while I was inching up the hill, I was having a hell of a time with traction. The new car was shaking it’s ass.

Car: Beep-beep.

Me: Yes, Car. I know. We’re having problems with traction!

Car: Beeeeep-beeeeep.

Me: Gah! Stop it already! I know!

Car: BEEEP! BEEEP! BEEEP!

Me: Stop judging me dammit! I’m doing the best I can.

That’s when I heard a plink. The plink of something on the left of the steering column turning on. It’s called traction control.  I didn’t even know my car could do that.

***

Nana: I’m never riding with your younger son, just so you know.

Me: What? Did? You? Do?

Nana: The boys wanted to drive go-carts, and Ant told me that he’s allowed to drive his own…

Me: NO.

Nana: Well, I know that now. And after we got kicked out of the first one…

Me: What?

Nana: He was going too fast.

Me: And?

Nana: And he squealed the tires around the corners.

Me: And?

Nana: He may have intentionally careened his cart into K’s.

Me: Oh, God.

Nana: So at the second track I rode with him in the double cart…

Me: And?

Nana: Well, the parent’s side controls didn’t work.

***

Me: Your father will have to teach you how to parallel park, however. I don’t do it. Ever.

K: Wait. What do you mean that you don’t parallel park? Isn’t that on the test?

Me: It is. But I didn’t do it then either.

K: I thought you had to pass the parallel parking in order to pass the test. I thought it was worth that many points.

Me: Technically, it is. But, I was born in August. And the test administrator was very grateful that I actually had air conditioning in my car during the test. So he gave my extra credit for that.

K: They can do that?

Me: I don’t think so, but I wasn’t going to argue.

Weekend Wrap-Up: May Day-ish

Ah… another week gone by, and this time I’m actually going to have a weekend wrap-up! May is always a crazy whirlwind of activity (how many field trips and class projects can one school district throw at a family? I’ll let you know once the month is over, but we are standing at four and three, respectively, for the next two weeks), and I am usually rather impressed with myself if I can MOSTLY hold things together through the university’s commencement ceremonies and until the boys get out of school.

Photo Source

J and I actually had the time and the energy to have a date night last night. A date night! With a bottle of wine and things that the boys would never agree to eat (like duck. DUCK!). It was weird to be sitting down, eating together, and talking. About things that weren’t “Which one of us is going to the school lunch thing on Tuesday?” and “What time does he need to be dropped off for the Six Flags trip?”

Ah, the glamorous life of parenthood. Why didn’t the nurses warn us of this crap before we left the childbirth prep class? Why don’t they teach classes on logistics and event planning the way they do for epidurals?

While on our date night, we discussed the wild success that The Bloggess has had on her book tour (seriously, buy this book!) and J, of course, always wonders how her husband (Victor) feels about all of this excitement surrounding his wife, and then I mentioned that I planned to buy him a TEAM VICTOR shirt, and then J said the most astounding thing I’ve heard him say in our marriage…

That is, when you compare idiosyncrasies between him and myself, it becomes increasingly apparent that J is actually The Bloggess type in our relationship, and I’m more like Victor.

Say what? I have always felt that I’m the more eccentric one.

And then he laid out his case… about how I’m more the one to be silent and listen in social situations, and he’s more likely the one who says something wildly off topic and inappropriate and quirky… about how he’s the one who randomly buys things (this is true—he’s on this glasses thing—we don’t need more glasses, but he thinks he must buy them if they’re on clearance, and then we’re trying to find a place to put these things—like Waterford pilsner glass sets that he picks up for $17)… about how he’s the one with the wild imagination and no filter on his mouth…

I realized he’s right. As much as I hate to admit it, I am downright boring when it compares to J. So, why is it that I have the blog and he doesn’t? When I asked him this, he said that I just need to spend some more time writing about him. Something in a cross between “Shit my husband says,” and “Let me tell you about all of the times he’s scared the shit out of me by making the children’s toys—and other inanimate objects—‘speak’ to me when I least expect it. Like when I’m asleep.

And this is why I will never get bored in our marriage. Since the first night I met him, he’s had a thing for elaborately rigging up happy meal toys to say foul-mouthed things.

Okay, I’m done allowing J to hijack this post, so let’s get down to business! This is what I wrote when I wasn’t here:

I talked about how Don Draper’s example can save you thousands in couple’s therapy, if you just do the opposite of what he does.

On a more serious note, I talked about a one-sentence long piece of legislation in our state that makes me a bit less proud to live in Missouri. Apparently, someone forwarded it to Ellen’s show!

Also, I wrote a 6000 word piece of fiction, and submitted it to a contest here! Wish me luck (and if you write, enter it!).

What was going on elsewhere:

Alex from Late Enough shares her hatred of birds. I shared my hatred of birds with her. We realize that birds are the scourge of the earth.

Sunday Morning has broadcast the most accurate and balanced description of student loan and tuition problems that I have seen. Check it out—it shows all sides.

The Bloggess makes mention of the book signing snafu that happened directly in front of Jesse (wail of grief here!) when she was at the signing in Dallas. More on this to come!

Steffie (don’t call her that!) relates the best text message conversation I’ve ever heard.

What was I nattering on about last year?

I wrote the first ever Imperfect Mothers post, in honor of Earth Day, no less. It is one of my highest viewed posts, ever. If you haven't read it, you need to. Because it will make you a good parent AND save Mother Earth!