Huh. Kind of unprofessional.

 As usual, no one has asked me.
But if they did, I'd say that it's a little... off.

This morning I contacted the office of the podiatrist that I saw for the first time yesterday.

They had a little form on their website to do so.

I don't know about everyone else, but making phone calls isn't my favorite thing anymore. I prefer email or text. It takes less time on my end, people can answer at leisure and if I need to do more talking, I can send another email or call if I reaaaally need to.

"I received an unsolicited email inviting me to register at YourHealthFile.
Did this originate with your office?"

It was about five minutes before they replied via text.
"Yes, now you can see your notes from your visit with Dr. Toejam."

I responded with, 'Since there was no doctor or practice named in the email it looks like a scam. Perhaps notifying people in advance would be advisable. Thank you for the response.'

They were 'sorry for any confusion' and thanked me for letting them know.

Bet ya they're not going to change anything, though.

I did not go to the website and register or give any information, either. I don't like the way they communicate. No response to my emailed query and no physician or practice named in the email is just weird.

If I need to see the notes from my exam I will ask for a paper copy of them, but all I need is to have my orthotics remade. The ones I have now are 10 years old and some of the issues that sent me to a podiatrist back then are returning.

I know why my feet are like they are, my arches are gone. Yippee. Doctor notes won't change that fact.

The issues aren't as bad as they were 10 years ago, though.
Just a little discomfort.

The doctor says the orthotics people can also resurface the ones I have when they make new ones, which will be helpful, too. I'll have a 2nd pair.

This won't be cheap. Send money.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of unprofessional... the weather people messed up again.  The 'probably won't stick small amount of snow' is seven inches deep in my neighborhood according to the weather report on the news.

I had a Zoom meeting this morning with my manager, during which it started to snow. I remarked on it, telling him that if it kept snowing I probably would not make it to work this afternoon.

By noon there were three inches of snow, they were closing the schools in our area early and it was still falling. Big, fat, wet flakes. Drifting down, coating the trees and the rhododendrons and my car. The forsythia started blooming over the weekend, too. So there were pretty little bursts of yellow showing through the white. Not now, though. Everything is under seven inches of snow.

When I talked to Mr. Manager again around noon (trying to figure out the weekly ordering process) he told me to stay home.

I'm glad I did. Being 25 miles from home and getting stranded isn't my idea of fun.
I have a check into a motel bag in my car in case that happens, but no thanks.

In the trunk I also have an electric blanket that plugs into the lighter socket in case I end up stuck on the freeway. I don't want that, either.

Eric got home tonight a little after 5. His usual 30 minutes to get home took him 2 hours.

On the good side, everything looks so pretty and soft.
And there's no traffuck noise outside, the snow muffles everything.

But looking at all the photos on the news and seeing the semi trucks and school buses wrecked on the route I usually take makes me glad I didn't go to work. I won't be going tomorrow, either. Right now the temp is dropping, the roads are covered with snow and ice and idiots.

I'm originally from Colorado. I've seen a ton of snow. It also snows here almost every year. But it always paralyzes the entire metropolitan area.

And you wanna talk unprofessional?

Dylan Rivera, the spokesmoron for Portland bureau of transportation or PBOT always says something really stupid for the obligatory sound bite (in 2016 he advised stranded motorists to call 911 and the system was overwhelmed with calls) and snow will happen again next year. It may even happen again this year. It is only February, after all.

No word yet.

I haven't heard anything about the possibility of having my program tossed out of my school. I *am* worrying about it, but I'm not spending a great deal of time in freaking out, as it won't do me any good to obsess.

The meeting the principal was supposed to go to has been postponed twice due to 'weather concerns'.

I seriously don't understand it, that weather thing.

We had no morning program on Monday, although I think the roads would have been fine. They err on the side of caution, everyone is suing everyone these days. So no morning program. Evening was fine.

Then, Tuesday morning, although everything looked just fine outside, they decided to cancel school for the entire day. Here and everywhere else.

They sent out the massive textwave as I was on my way into the bathroom to take my wakeup shower. I would have been SO pissed off if I'd already gotten ready for work and then been told I didn't have to go in.

Didn't get a damn thing done on Tuesday. That's how I am. But there was no problem with the roads. NO reason we couldn't have had school.

Then, this morning, when it was way colder with 50% more ice, everyone in the greater Portland area closed their schools.

Except for our district.

So I went in. Morning program had a grand total of three kids.
Stayed until 8:45 organizing a bit of stuff, I haven't been in lately.

This afternoon, I was getting ready to go to work when the alert hit my phone... 
'district canceling all evening activities'. Meaning my program.

So I had to go to the school to call all the families who have kids in my program and stay until they were all picked up. Stevie was the last one, his mom got him at just about 4.

Now there wasn't a reason to close things early, the pavement is dry everywhere. It's cold and windy, but it's frequently cold and windy out here.

Geez.

So the principal's meetings have been canceled a couple times along with my regular before/after school program, and I don't know what's going to happen regarding my place in the district.

One of my parents told me via email about today's go home early decision thing that she thinks the 'district is making some bad choices'.

I refrained from telling her about the latest one.
I know that all my parents will be pissed off if it happens.

Me, too.

I hate winter.

Before you roll your eyes and think something like, 'that chick don't know nothin' about bad weather' I'll tell you I'm originally from Colorado.

And in Colorado, we got a lot of snow.
I've lived in Vale, La Grande and John Day Oregon,too.
I understand what it's like to be in the cold for months and months. I know what it's like to have two or three feet of snow. I understand below zero weather.

I wish I didn't, I hate being cold.

But it's different here.
First, almost no one seems to understand a very basic rule for driving in winter conditions... slow the hell down.

No, really. SLOW DOWN. I don't care if you have 4wd, either. That doesn't mean you can drive the way you usually do, it just means that you'll have slightly better traction than most of us. You still need to leave extra stopping distance. You will still slip and slide a bit if you're not careful.

On Friday night the forecast was for the end of the world.
I mentioned to Eric in passing that I had considered a rotisserie chicken for dinner, but as my kids were picked up and I talked with parents, I changed my mind. I heard about 2 hour lines at Walmart, people waiting for 40 minutes to fill their gas tanks and all the crazy traffic and decided we'd just go home when Eric picked me up. He was off work for the day, so drove me to and from. Kind of nice.

He had other ideas. Insisted on getting me a chicken at Fred Meyer. The parking lot looked like an anthill. It was utterly crazy. I have never seen it like that, not even during the holidaze.

I kept trying to talk him out of going in. "I'll eat scrambled eggs and toast. You're crazy if you think you're going in there!"

But he made me park the car and he went in.
Where, of course, they were completely out of already cooked chickens.
He called me from inside the store to tell me they were out of milk, too.
And bread.
And this and that.

"Is there anything else you want?" he asked.
"Well, if they have some of those little cherry pastries I like, that would be great."

So then he called me back a couple minutes later and said, "You mean the cherry streusel things?"

I told him that would be fine, and he said, "I have the last package of them, I'm walking around with it and some guy is eyeballing it. Wanted to make sure."

Now that's funny.
Or at least I found it so.

But the frenzied Friday shopping was like a horde of locusts and made the local news. Someone posted an emptied bin of Kale on the book of Face, calling it a uniquely Portland thing.

I guess the kale-munching wooly-headed Yuppicansis weren't the only people who thought going to the store was a good idea.

Hey! Emo! Pass the orthopedic cheese.

I figured we'd stay home from our usual Saturday grocery run, we have plenty of stuff on hand all the time. But Eric thought it would be a good idea to go. The weather jerks told us that we were going to be buried under possibly 14 inches of snow in the next 5 days. So we went. It looked like the apocalypse had happened in that store. The only milk left on the shelves was skim. Who the hell drinks skim milk? Not even the desperate. Blech.

I'm actually supposed to purchase that kind of milk for my kids. I don't. I use the milk card they provide and buy 2%. Kids don't need low fat anything. Fat isn't what causes obesity, either. In case you didn't know.

So we've had some crazy weather.
(It's not really crazy... happens almost every year.)

I actually thought we weren't going to have the snow/ice/snow thing this year because here we are in mid-February and it hadn't happened.
But then BOOM.

My program got kicked out of the school last week on Monday at 3, a precautionary measure. The roads weren't impassable or scary until about 8 or 9 PM, so we really could have stayed in the building until parents picked up at their usual times, but I don't get a choice when that happens.

Of course the entire area shuts down when we get snow, so the school schedule is crazy, too. Yesterday morning I had no morning program, because when the school is on a two hour delayed start, I have no program.

In my old job, if school was on a two hour delay, our program was, too. I had a lot further to drive back then, it was a little over eight miles from my house to the front door of the school. And eight miles home. And eight miles back in the afternoon. And eight miles home again.

On those mornings that we started two hours late, there was usually more ice and snow than I was comfortable with. Logically, if it isn't safe for kids and buses etc, I don't know why it was deemed safe for us.

As usual no one asked me.

But it's one more thing about this job that's better than that one.
I could make you a list with at least 20 things on it. Yeah, it was hard to leave, but I am glad now that I did. I'll never forgive that morally bankrupt harpy and her bevy of beastly bitches, but that's a separate issue.

I'm thinking that the worst of the weather is over, though.

This morning there was an ant on my kitchen counter and a spider in the bathroom AND one in the momcave while I was getting dressed for work.

It's raining, but there's still snow on the ground, more of it out by where I work, but there's still some in my yard, too.

And did I mention it's raining?

:::sigh:::

Well what a mess.

Got the FlashAlert about 6 tonight.
Schools across the metro area closed again tomorrow.
It's white out there, but on top of the white we're gonna get a clear layer. Supposed to have freezing rain all day tomorrow.
Or off and on.
Or maybe just in the morning.
Or maybe in the afternoon.
Or only during the night.

The weather guys can't agree.
The forecast seems to change hourly.
My district was the first one to cancel this time.

I was expecting them to wait until 5 AM to call it, even though it's obvious to me that there's no way in hell that school buses can travel safely. Definitely not something I want to drive in. And of course once I've driven somewhere, I have to get out of the car and walk.

The ice cleats I ordered from Amazon should be arriving at my school tomorrow, but since the building will be closed, I'm pretty sure they won't be delivering them.

::sigh:::

On the good side, the forecast seems to be for warmer temperatures, which is definitely a good thing. We haven't had a day warmer than 32 since December 29th.

I know that doesn't seem like a big deal to my readers who live where it's cold all winter, but it's unusual for my area to be like that and I friggin' hate it.

Apparently it's going to rain like hell on Wednesday and be 50 degrees. Which means all this snow is going to melt and we're going to have floods. Hopefully it won't be anywhere close to what happened in 1996, that was a horrendous mess.

There were many deaths and a whole lot of property loss and sadness.

We were in Disneyland when this happened. We came home during the height of the flooding, drove up I-5 and saw the destruction all the way up.

Our house was fine, we are high enough above the Columbia that I don't think we'll ever need to worry.

Willamette Falls when it's not flooded

1996 during the height of the flooding

It's not warm and I really hate politicians.

It's actually colder out there today than it was yesterday.

According to the weather guys, with the wind chill it's 8 below right now. I don't know about that, since I haven't been out of the house since Tuesday. I can tell you that it's windy, the sky is a brilliant blue, the snow has all blown off the roof and it looks like new snow fall, and I'm sitting here in my (clean, just got out of the shower about 10 minutes ago) pajamas at almost noon.

I want to stay in bed under my electric blanket.
Until June.

"It's butt cold out here."

Oregon's governor Kate Brown is one of those goddamn idiot politicians (why no, I don't like her! Wow, you figured that out with remarkably few clues!!) who, by her own admission, isn't interested in finding ways for the state to save money. Not a priority. Yep, she actually said that. Last week, I think.

When asked if the state would budget money for snow/ice removal, she had this to say, "I think folks are going to be very committed to making sure we have the resources we need to not just have an effective and safe transportation system that's resilient in an emergency situation."

What the fuck does that even mean?
Hey, I'm glad you asked that!
It means, "We need to raise taxes."

I'm not the first person to say this, and it's not even the first time I've said it. But when my family doesn't have enough money to make ends meet, we (drumroll, please) DO WITHOUT!!!

We don't go buy new furniture or expensive clothes or electronic things. We simply spend as little as possible and wait for things to get better. As a result, even though things are sometimes very difficult, we manage to operate in a more or less sensible fashion. And we DO think about cutting expenses. In fact, that's one of our priorities.

It makes me furious that ALL these people do is raise taxes.
A few years ago, they doubled our vehicle registration fees.
And then spent the rest of the legislative session rubbing up against each other and congratulating each other on passing the 'transportation package'.

That great big bunch of cash was going to 'fix all the roads!'.One of our "representatives" wrote a masterpiece of self-aggrandizing CRAP letter to all the newspapers and her constituents, telling us how proud she was to have helped pass that legislation. What a huge steaming pile of horse shit.

But alas. It "wasn't enough" money to actually fix any roads.
So now they're looking for ways to raise our taxes again.

None of the people who claim to represent me actually DO.
I'm so sick of these posturing fools.

They spend millions on traffic studies and the big electric train set (another boondoggle) and failed health plan websites and redecorating all the offices in their insular buildings. Everything's all matchy-matchy and opulent.
And I resent paying for it. I resent what they take from us and the very low rate of return. Once again, I lament the complete lack of integrity and the utter craziness of the whole system. All the paid lobbyists and the money that changes hands to ensure all of them continue to exist and be paid for doing nothing. They're not even good at hiding how inept they are.

It's at the local level. It's at the state level. And today isn't a good day to get me started on the fuckwads at the federal level.

Shit.

But a long time ago, up North, where it's cold, even colder than it is here, they had a simple solution.

When a member of the group had outlived his/her usefulness and could not contribute to the general well-being of the tribe, they simply put them out on the ice and let them die.

And while I don't necessarily advocate a solution that extreme (not that I've ruled it out...) we *do* have a lot of ice right now.
And coincidentally the biggest group of useless politicians we've ever had.
It wouldn't really cost anything.

Same (white) stuff, different day...

We're still buried in about 25 feet of snow.
Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but it may as well BE 25 feet, ain't nothin' goin' on out there. Schools are closed, businesses are closed, state offices are closed, freeways which are open should probably BE closed... it's a mess.

I understand why it's so bad and I don't fault people for abandoning their cars on the freeways. The city doesn't plow adequately, they're never prepared for something that happens in some form every single winter, and every time it happens, no one can figure out how to keep it from happening the next time. And when the guy in front of you slides across four lanes of traffic, spins out and hits the median and all the other cars are trying to get out of the way and the only way you can avoid being in the middle is to let your OWN car slide off the road and then you're stuck and what the hell are you going to do you end up in the pile of snow and can't do a damn thing to get out.

It's one of the reasons I'm so paranoid about making sure my car has a full tank of gas when I have to get on the freeway during the winter. And I make sure there's a blanket in the trunk, some water, a couple granola bars, any medications I am taking. Phone charged up.

It's the anxiety, though. I have less anxiety when I plan ahead. When I expect the worst to happen and plan for it, even though the worst rarely does happen. It's the same reason I made a hundred lists when I was planning events for Girl Scouts or for birthday parties or starting the new school year at my job. I have to write things down because if I don't, I wake up all night long and obsess. I get six things in my brain and every time I turn over, I feel like I need to repeat them or I might forget. And when I have a super event planned, it's worse. So it's a defense mechanism, all that planning. I've had people admire how well I plan.

Don't. It's not something to admire. It's me, being a nutjob.

This morning, Eric took Lyssa to work. She doesn't like to wear a heavy coat, it bothers her on several levels. And that's fine, she's smart enough to know if she's cold. But if THE WORST happened and the car went off the road and she and Eric had to walk, he would insist on giving her HIS coat. A fatherly thing to do. But not good. So I asked her to toss her coat into the car. Just in case.

My wish to control things doesn't just stop at controlling ME, you see.

So we're not in school again today. We missed four days this week. Monday is a holiday, so there won't be school on Monday, either. I suppose half a paycheck is better than no paycheck.

I'm going to be angsting over more money being taken out of our savings account. But we'll pay the bills and soldier on.

It's 21 degrees outside. There's a foot of snow on the ground. There's an inch of ice over the top of the snow since it started to thaw yesterday and then froze again overnight.

I'm glad I am not expected to make it to work when it's like this.

Blech.

SNOWMAGEDDON!!

I think those are cars. Aren't they?

It's quite a mess out there, as you can see.
Reports from our area go from 6 to 15 inches of snow, depending on whether the person measuring is a man or woman, I guess.
Men seem to have problems with measuring inches accurately.
::snicker::

Holy Shit!

It's 3:15. My school district just now called off school for tomorrow, too. It's simply too much snow in an area that's unprepared for snow. We have very few snowplows and deicing trucks. We have people who aren't able to drive in it. Cars are abandoned on the freeway, making it difficult for the few snowplows we have to clear the roads. People who have the misfortune of living on bus snow routes don't have bus service for their kids to get to school and most of them probably should not drive their kids anywhere.

So that's why a snow storm closes the entire metropolitan area.
There was a story on the news this morning about a woman who was trying to get home last night on the freeway, she only passed two exits in 9 hours, that's how badly things were backed up.

The photos on the news are enough for me to be able to tell that I don't need to be out there.
We're supposed to have a site director's meeting tomorrow morning at the office, but I suspect they will call it off. I won't go out in this stuff, I am not equipped to walk in the event of an emergency on the freeway. Nope, nope, nope. I don't see myself driving or going anywhere tomorrow. Or Friday. It's not supposed to warm up until Sunday. And by midweek it's supposed to be 50 degrees. And then everything will melt at once. Next week we're expecting flooding.

Sheesh.

Yesterday morning I went to the bank and deposited our paychecks.
Every month, when our checks go in, I visualize our checking account suddenly feeling healthy. And then I see it wilting and falling into an incoherent heap on the bottom of my vault (hey, I didn't say it was factual visualization) as the money I put in drains away at an alarming rate over the next few days, leaving me with just enough to buy groceries until the next infusion of cash.

Repeat. Forever and ever, amen.

So I banked. Then, I groceried. I had seen the weather report and I knew we were gonna get hit with the shit. I bought milk and eggs and a chicken and some cubed steak and a little of this and that.

So we won't starve while we're snowed in.

Now technically we're not snowed in. Eric took Lyssa to work this morning and she worked her shift. But it *is* really slick, the roads are not well-maintained, and staying home right now is a pretty good idea.

So I have what I need for baking some cookies and we have good food and everyone's safely at home.

Lyssa does have a shift scheduled on Friday, hopefully things will be at least passable by then.

Meanwhile, send money. Since my bank account is *really* gonna freak out in about two weeks when the shifts we haven't worked catch up with our paychecks.

::sigh::
That will be the real state of emergency.

Oh snoooooow!! Not again!!!

I was going to work on a positive post.
But while that will probably still happen, I'm just feeling like griping a little more.

First, the weather.
Yeah, everyone complains about it and no one does anything about it.
I am also going to complain.
And then I'm going to do nothing about it!

Where I live, it doesn't just snow.
We get snow, then it warms up a little and we get a layer of frozen on top.

Kind of like a hard candy with a creamy middle except it's not creamy and it's not candy.
Huh.
I guess it's nothing like candy.
Never mind.

So we had ice and stuff late on Friday night and into Saturday.
Oh and on Sunday, too.

It warmed up on Sunday, but it was still frozen when we went to bed on Sunday night. I knew, everyone knew.. no school Monday.

But they waited until 4:30 AM on Monday to call it. Because they knew that I'd be lying awake and wondering. They knew I'd be looking at the ice-encased little silver car in the driveway every time I got up to pee. And they didn't care. They're as cold as the weather. My discomfort means nothing to them.

So we had no school Monday. And had a regular day today, Tuesday. Except my car was still encased in ice and the side streets were all icy. My school is on a hill. The hill had been sanded and de-iced. But the sidewalks in front of the school and the icy steps up to my little back door on the East side of the school.. well, an inch of ice is impossible to walk on.

There were two very narrow pathways up the main stairs to the school, but I had to navigate a large expanse of iced sidewalk and slick conditions to get there. Not a lot of fun. But hey, at least I didn't fall.

Only had three kids this morning. So it was quiet. Or mostly. My resident comedian was in fine form and everyone had the giggles. I admit to possibly laughing a bit myself when his shark beanie baby remarked to Kenzie's, "But little Seahorse, you must eat! I saved you my best gigantic bird heads!"

And Seahorse, who was very whiny (haha, whiny but NOT shellfish...) said, "But I don't like them! The beaks get caught!"

We didn't ask where the beaks get caught.
::snort::

So this afternoon about one, I got the FlashAlert from the school district.
"School buildings will be closing at 5 PM, all evening activities are canceled."

Followed up with a phone call from the office with instructions to get to my site as soon as possible to call all the parents and let them know.Duh. Ain't my first rodeo.

I could have been a little insulted when I was further instructed to notify manager when I'd done so, then notify him again once they've all been picked up. I could have been insulted... except for the employment criteria I've mentioned before... show up, have a pulse. I'm sure that at least 90% of the people they've hired aren't really capable of realizing that they'd need to contact all the parents and let them know what's going on.

When I got to the school I was asked to run my program from the gym this evening instead. It seems that some of the maintenance guys from the school district came to the school, grabbed the bags of de-icer and took them to distribute at other schools. I don't have a clue what the hell they were thinking. But it was considered too dangerous to let my parents drive around to the back door and pick up their kids.

And by 5, they were gone. It took me another 15 minutes to haul the toys and other things we'd brought to the gym back to our little room, then I made it home about 5:30. Snow started falling then, and hasn't stopped. It's nearly eleven and still sifting down.

And in an uncharacteristic show of kindness, the district has already called school off for tomorrow.

On the not-so-kind side of the scale, we're officially past the number of days the kids can miss, so they have to add them to the end of the school year in June.

That means instead of two weeks of parties and mostly goofing off, they will probably have three weeks of it. Nothing is accomplished at the end of the school year. I can't imagine why, after starting life as children incarcerated in public schools, the educrats don't remember that.

But I get to stay home where it's warm and I don't have to do a damn thing but laundry tomorrow. I'll take it.

I hope there are some gigantic bird heads in the fridge.
Haha.
Kids.

Baby it's cold outside...

Cracks me up to listen to the local news broadcasts.
ARMAGEDDON!!!

Yeah, and armageddon sick of it.

They make big graphics to splash across the screen as they interrupt whatever's on to bring you the WEATHER!! LIVE!!!

They've bundled up some poor schmuck in Columbia sportswear splattered indiscriminately with the news station logo and then sent them out in the news van to whatever location seems most photogenic.

Said schmuck waits for the hand off from the studio, looks earnestly into the camera, then leans down with a brave-yes-it's-cold-but-nothing-stands-between-me-and-the-big-story smile, scoops up a little snow/ice mix and says something like, "LOOK AT ALL THIS WHITE STUFF!! It's COLD! IT'S WET! IT'S FROOOOZENNNNN!!!! And here," s/he slides a boot-clad foot, "You can SEE how slick it is!!! Brrrrr!!!"

Always makes me think of this.

What really happened is this. We had a week of cold, cold wind. Then, a skiff of snow. I'm talking barely enough to turn the ground white. Because the ground was cold, the snow stuck. Then, we got some rain. It was already cold out. So it froze.

Recipe for disaster here in manic,pass-the-pale-ale-and-don't-spill-it-on-my-birkenstocks Portland, I'm afraid.

Eric and I were from Colorado originally. We've both lived other places, but we know how to drive in snow and ice.

It's different in Western Oregon. Not only is the road surface different because it's not a bunch of packed snow, but many of the other people on the road have no clue how to drive in snow and ice.

To be fair, it is incredibly slick and if you don't have a really good reason to go out, you probably shouldn't. Because there will be people on the road who did not stock up before the weather changed and they're intent on getting to the grocery store. Faces determined, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles, they run stop lights, slide all over the place and scare the hell out of the rest of us.

Or in the case of this guy, just drove down a street and couldn't negotiate a curve...

Photo from Multnomah County Sheriff's Dept Website

It's icy and scary out there.

Our school district, usually the last one to call off school when the conditions are bad, was one of the first last night. I was relieved.

The way it usually works is that I look out the window at bedtime. I say, "It is not going to melt before morning. Why the hell don't they call it now?"

Then, I go to bed. The alarm goes off at 5AM, I get up and look out the window again. It hasn't melted. The streets are still shining with ice. My car is in a crystalline cocoon. I look at news websites, school district website. Every district around us, including the one *I* live in has closed for the day or chosen to start on a 2 hour delay. But the district I work in? Nothing. I do that for about fifteen minutes, refreshing websites and hoping Mr. Dithers the superintendent in our district has managed to make a decision. Then, I must get into the shower so I can be ready for work on time.

Shower. Dry my hair. Get dressed. I'm wide awake now. Check the websites again and school has been canceled. Then I scream, "GAHHHHHHHH you stupid assholes!!! WHY the FUCK didn't you call it last night???? Gaaaaahhhh you fucking morons!!!"

Repeat at least once more during the winter.

This time they called it at 6:40 last night.
Ahh. A bonus day.

One of us didn't get the message, though. I'm not sure if her power was out or she didn't think to check, but I got a text this morning at 5:30 wanting to know what time we are supposed to report to work. I should actually say my phone got the text, as I put it on alarm only when it's bedtime. (Eric has an emergency phone next to the bed if close friends or family need to call.)

She texted me a couple minutes later saying that she had learned that school was closed for the day.

So I am defrosting something for dinner, sitting over the heater and considering what I would like to do with my bonus day. Art, probably. Or something crafty.

How are things in your neighborhood?

Ahh, Sunday

And the sun is most certainly OUT.
We're going to be in a heat wave until at least Friday.
Ugh.

I don't like the heat.
I don't like humidity.
I particularly dislike heat mixed with humidity. If I still liked to swim (meaning 'if I had a pool in my back yard and 20 foot impenetrable-by-human-eyes walls) I'd enjoy the sun a little more.

We escaped from the heat yesterday by driving up toward Mt. Hood. There's a little place we like to go that's almost never crowded, mostly because there's really nothing much there. No amenities, just a couple brown outhouses and a dumpster. A small creek runs along the day use area, and there are picnic tables, birds, and bugs.
I still smell lemongrass insect repellant.
Repellent?

Funny, spell check finds both acceptable. My fingers typed it with an 'a' first, then I typed it with an 'e'.

:::shrug:::

Anyway, I still smell it because I sprayed it on my clothing and haven't done the laundry yet. Don't want to heat up the house. I'll run a couple loads this evening and dry them in the morning before it gets hot.

So just the two of us... a picnic, my tangly stuff, we both brought books and comfortable chairs. Reading glasses. Yeah, we're old. So?

It was nice to hang out with my favorite guy and have nothing I had to do.
When I'm home and trying to relax, there is always a miles-long list of things that need to be done, and the guilt kills me if I don't get busy on it and do something. (Although I usually do the minimum necessary for survival.)

When we arrived up there yesterday, we unloaded our car and walked up the hill to the bathrooms. I worried aloud about leaving my backpack on the table, and Eric said there was no one even near our area, we'd only be gone a couple minutes, and he'd be watching when he came out. He thought he'd have to wait for me. Haha.. I peed faster. In case you needed to know. I came out first and watched our little area downhill. Saw nothing.

We were there for maybe three minutes. Hiked back down the hill. When we reached our little clearing, there was a raven near the fire pit. In his talons was the whole package of hot dog buns! The little opportunist had stolen them from the grocery bag on the table.
He'd been busy.
He'd stuck his pecker into my husband's buns (hahahaha) and just shredded most of the buns.
And the plastic.
Eric waved him off. We inspected the damage.

He was able to salvage two buns, enough for his lunch.
I had brought my own lunch, which was in the ice chest. Apparently raven-proof.

We stayed until a little before six last night.
Came home, showered and put stuff away, and went to bed.

Party animals, that's us.

So today is grocery shopping and getting at least a start on the whole clean-the-house-the-father-in-law-is-coming annual cleaning festival.

Matt and Amy are getting married on the 24th of August, and Bob will be arriving a couple days before.

Brrr!

My guess is that at the very least schools will be open two hours later than usual on Tuesday morning. When I left work this evening, it was icy cold outside (temperature inversion) and had been spitting a little rain all day long. Just enough to make sure the roads are wet so they'll freeze up.

I won't mind a two hour delay. In fact, if I have to be honest, I'd be pretty happy to just take a day off. Not sure if that's going to happen, though.

What always pisses me off is that the school district *I* work in fucks around and can't decide whether to shit or go blind... do we call school off? Do we just delay it? And they wait until 5:30 or 5:45 to make the call... just as I'm preparing to head out the door. It would be nice if they made the call at 3 AM or so, so that when I get up and check my weather report, I will know and NOT get up at five and wash my hair and do all the shit I need to do to get ready for work. I'll be wide awake and end up not sleeping for shit when I go back to bed. Dammit!

Now mind you, all the surrounding districts have it figured out and have called school off for the day much earlier. And it's not like the weather in our district is different than the others, we're all in the same damn city!!

So if I stay home all day, I will have time to do some serious tie dye rinsing. If not... not.

Stay tuned. :)

whooooooooooooooooosh

Time is flying! So are yard debris, gallons of rain,sticks, anything that isn't tied down.

Got on early this evening to make sure I write a post before we (possibly) lose power. The weather jerks are promising something like 'the storm of the century' and suggested that we might lose power.

Ha, I feel powerless enough as it is.

Apparently we're to have 45 to 50 mph wind and 60 mph gusts. I fail to see how this is any different from our regular winter stuff, but of course I am not a weather guy.

So if the power is out at the school, they close the school for the day. Last time that happened, the power was out at 7:30, they called school for the day, then the power came on about 8:10. And it was too late to change their minds, so everyone got a day off.

I'll be taking some days off this holiday... I asked for vacation time between January 2nd and 4th, giving me the whole week. I have accrued some vacation time since last year when I was sliced and diced. This will be the first vacation time I've taken since that happened.

And on that front, I am finally really starting to do better physically. It's been a really tough three years, a ton of rehab work, pain, work, pain, pain, and pain. It's been a pain. :)

Today I noticed that I can get up and down from the sofa without having to have my seat elevated with a stack of pillows. I know that probably doesn't sound like a big deal, but I have not been able to do that in three years.

I have been trying to do strengthening exercises and working a bit on balance. I am not a thin person, and sometimes that doesn't help, either, but most of my difficulty has been because of my painful knees, pre and post op.

It is NOT an easy recovery process, that's for sure.

Ah well. I'm glad it's behind me.

On the 'time flying' front, I celebrated last week's birthday by having lunch with Tami on Saturday. We went to Chang's Mongolian Grill (referred to by Alden as 'You know, that, um, mongoloid place?' when he was telling me about a visit from his little cousins) and had a nice, leisurely meal.

Then, we stopped by the craft store. I am unreasonably excited by the purchase of a Santa hat and a black top hat for Leopold and 20 little flocked pumpkins for craft projects in October 2013. I picked up a couple micron pens for the Zentangly stuff I do, and it seems like something else, too, but can't remember.

What I DO remember is spending time with my friend. The one who's always there to listen to me, the one who, although she has a million and one things that she's always juggling, has ALWAYS had time for me. Always has insight. Always makes me smile.

So I'm going to hit post on this before the wind blows the house away. Hope you have a good Monday, safe and warm and full of friends.

Well Armageddon sick of this!

The power went off during the night. Not sure what time. But at 2:22 (according to my cell phone), I was awakened by the house phone beeping (just one teeny beep as the power came back on) and the impeller in the big fish tank in the living room going nuts, as it always does when there's a power surge. At first I couldn't figure out what the sound was, and woke Eric up because it was a strange sound in the middle of the night and that's how I always handle that.

Got up at 5 when my alarm went off.
Staggered into the kitchen, tugging my big sweatshirt on and holding my slippers. Huddled at the kitchen table over the still-warming-up heater put my slippers on and waited for my computer to wake up. Once it did, I learned from two news stations that school in my district had been canceled for the day.

"Power outages due to snow. Roads are bad. Don't panic. Everyone just go back to sleep."
Or something like that.

So I went back to bed, but I was already cold. Couldn't seem to warm up, finally grabbed the flax-filled microwave heat pack and got up again and put it in the microwave. I stood on the rug in front of the kitchen sink, dancing from foot to foot (hey, the floor is cold) and heated it. Finally managed to get back to sleep a little before 7. That's AM.

So, spending a day at home. Yes, I am writing in the morning. And it won't post until after midnight.

So what am I going to do with my day?

I'm going to clear off the table. A job of about 10 minutes, and that's only because I need to remove labels from the bottles I've been saving to make sensory bottles for work.

I'm strongly pondering getting out the supplies and mixing up some dyes, too. I have a lot of white shirts and pillowcases that are just asking for dye.

And on Sunday, if I'm not totally off on my calendar, I will hit 3000 posts on my very controversial and exciting blog. I think I should give something away for that, don't you?

And I ended up working on a sewing project instead. Which always makes me swear because I was not intended to be a seamstress, I don't think. Makes me grumpy.

I had a school sweatshirt from last year, and it had a big ribbed band at the bottom. Even when I wasn't fat I didn't like the ribbed bottoms, but for someone like me? No. Just no. So I thought I'd cut up the sides a few inches and fix it that way. But no. The ribbed band was still very tight and bunched up the shirt.

Fine. I cut the ribbed band OFF and hemmed up the shirt instead.  No again. Too short.

So I had this blue plaid flannel shirt with a tank top sort of thing sewn in. Kind of like a jacket over a shirt thing, but attached. And the tank part was polyester, which makes me sweat like a warthog. Even if it's not hot. So I was going to give the whole thing back to Goodwill, but then I thought I might cut off the collar and sleeves and bottom and fix the sweatshirt into something I could actually wear.

I think that may work, once I finish ripping out every damn seams I did and starting over.

I've been basting the things into place this time, and will haul out the machine and fix them once I have it right.

My little 2 hour project turned into an all-afternoon ordeal, and I'm not really all that thrilled about it.

In fact, I'm actually a little crabby.

Gaaaahhhhh.

Why is it

That when the weather man says a 20% chance of rain, if I don't bring my umbrella, I'm gonna get soaked?

And I wish I had a buck for every time I've had to scrape two inches of 'partially cloudy' off the windshield of the car in the winter time.

You can almost count on the meteorologist you see on TV to be wrong at least 75% of the time.

So why is it that when he (or she) says it's gonna be hotter than hell, it actually is? I'd much rather have the forecast be incorrect and get rained or snowed on than have it be 100 degrees like it was this last week.

I really, really hate the heat.
Have I mentioned that?

About ten years ago (wow, I think it really has been that long!!) I bought a small window air conditioner for the living room. It actually does pretty well, although I bought one that is smaller than we needed for the square footage of the living room. But by about 8 or so in the evening, when it's still hotter outside than it is inside, the heat starts to catch up with the AC. And for about an hour or an hour and a half, we all swelter, fans going or not.

I'm not a big believer in global warming.. or 'climate change' as they've now started calling it. (Yeah... duh... the climate changes. Always has, always will.) I'm way greener than Al (I own nine mansions and a boat and a jet and a fleet of cars) Gore. And until he makes even a half-assed effort to live as green as I do, I'll continue to think he's full of shit. A colossal fraud.

Our recent hot weather is not unusual or unseasonal. It's August. We should expect heat. I do not have to be a lying, philandering former politician to figure that out. Not to mention any names, of course.

But I'd love it if the meteorologists could be wrong once in awhile when they're predicting hot weather.

And I hope they're RIGHT when they say that the heat wave we just survived ought to be our last one for the summer, due to cooling night time temperatures and the shortening of the days.