The Inmates Run the Asylum

Today was questionable at best. I knew it would be when I got to work to find an email from one of my least favorite customers waiting for me.

Between the 20 inches of snow dumped in Wisconsin, the 20 below wind chills in Minnesota, and the no shows at delivery sites, and drivers running late for reasons I was not informed of, the phones rang quite a bit today. I think mine rang more today than it has the entire time I've worked there.

It was a cursed Monday for a lot of people. Albert spilled coffee all over his desk. A water jug leaked all over Shilo's paperwork and she ended up spreading it around her office floor to dry. The metal office's computers went down so Gina and Kent couldn't get anything done for at least an hour.

I wouldn't say it was a bad day, though. At least not for me. It was just a pain in the ass. I think it helps that I'm getting the hang of my job and how things work.

At any rate, I'm hoping tomorrow is an improvement.

It's warming up this week. It's supposed to hit 60 before the week's out.

The giant piles of snow are melting.

I can see this green and brown stuff underneath of it.

I think it's mold.

Going in to work wasn't too bad this morning. It'd stopped sleeting pretty early last night so there wasn't much to deal with.

Business started to pick up, as JR would say, around mid-morning after several of the out of town people left. (They basically just came in to get done what they could before it got bad.) Sleet and snow. Fun stuff. All of the shop guys left by noon and the only office personnel left were the ones that lived in town.

One of our drivers who lives in Indiana ended up getting stranded here, so he's staying in a hotel. He wasn't going to be able to beat the storm back home.

Chad went home for lunch, but I brought mine so I wouldn't have to leave. The wind really started to pick up out in the boonies where I work to the point of whiteout conditions at times. It was still mostly a snow/sleet mix.

A little after noon, the Internet went out. Chad came back from lunch and once it was determined that the Internet was going to be out for the rest of the day, I got sent home. We can't do anything without it.

Chad warned me that the wind was whipping the snow/sleet hard and he was right. That was some stinging business going on and I'm glad I didn't have to do much scraping to my car. The drive home wasn't too horrible if you don't count the curve where the road disappeared. I made it home just as the it went to straight snow and started coming down hard.

It did let up enough for me to grill. Snow up the shirt was chilly, though. The wind is pretty fierce. My firefighter friend posted on FB that another firefighter found an American flag blowing up the street, pole and all.

As of right now, I'm still on to go to work in the morning, though it might be late if they don't get the Internet back up. And I may be chauffered if we end up getting the ten to sixteen inches they're predicting. At least that's the last total I saw.

I bet the way the wind is blowing, it'll be more than just the road at that one curve missing.

The snow has been coming down since eleven this morning and while it makes things very pretty, the streets better be cleared by tomorrow. I'm just saying.

Thanks to katia_247 for the absolutely adorable card and to one_more_cherry for the fantastic gifts. You two are the best and you totally made my Christmas Eve. <3

While Pete doesn't like to go out into the snow because of all of the things she dislikes, getting her feet wet rates pretty high up there, the neighbor's cat has no such problem.

There are little Rascal-prints all over the neighborhood. Apparently, he doesn't take a snow day from his patrols.

I just wonder how he keeps his belly out of the snow. It's pretty deep in some places.

Despite the fact that it had been snowing a good part of the afternoon and evening, I decided I was going to grill anyway. It wasn't like I'd be standing outside the whole time and I'd grilled in the cold before. What was a little snow?

Well, I was right. The snow was nothing.

The wind, however, was fierce. And snow can sting when it hits you in the face at high velocity. I'm just saying. Not to mention the havok it played with my flames every time I opened the lid. But, I managed to cook the steaks without much trouble considering how many times I've nearly set myself on fire with that grill.

And then I brought the steaks inside and went about finishing up the onions and mushrooms when the power went out. The first thing out of my mouth? "I'm cooking here, dammit!"

After a few more seconds of blackness and my confused brain trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with dinner, the power came back on. Good thing because I was blanking on a back-up plan.

The power just went out again about twenty minutes ago. Carrie said that Spot was sleeping under the table upstairs in her room at the time. When the power went out, Spot woke up and looked at Carrie like it was her fault.

And if you ask Pete, the wind and snow are the bipeds' fault, too.

Well, we're sure as hell not doing anything to stop it.

Edit: The power just flickered again. I'm getting really tired of resetting my clock.

Due to the snowglobe-like weather (lots of snow, high winds, no wind breakers, we're not going to be seeing pavement for awhile), Dad's retirement open house was postponed until next week.

Which is just as well since Papa wanted to go and he's still in the hospital. His pneumonia is getting better, but he's retained a lot of fluid (it's part of his heart condition) and they want to get it all off before they send him home. So he's going to be there for a couple of more days at least. He's resigned to it, but he's not exactly happy about it.

And again, it's just as well that they keep him in a couple of more days because he doesn't need to be out in this nasty weather anyway.

Speaking of the weather, it was quite pretty toward sunset when it stopped snowing and there was a break in the wind. My skull didn't appreciate the prettiness, though.

Remember yesterday how I said that it'd been snowing all day and we'd gotten a good bit of it?

Well, it snowed last night and today, too.

My car this afternoon.

And this was after Carrie had cleaned two inches of snow off of it last night.

Yeah, I had to use a pushbroom.

I realize that other places (like in Texas and Oklahoma, wtf?) probably got more snow than we did, but this is definitely the first significant snowfall of the year. It deserved to be noted.

Especially since someone down the block got stuck. While I was out cleaning off my car I heard them yelling, "Push! No, push now!"

I laughed at their pain.

'Cause I'm a bad person like that. Duh.

My dad always says that if you want to sleep well at night, do something during the day.

I decided to take his advice today as last night I didn't get a very restful night's sleep and kept having funky dreams. I didn't scream at little old ladies, but I did end up in a play written and directed by David Hewlett and couldn't remember my lines and at some point during the night, I went to Little Cesaer's with a bunch of guys from the Sopranos.

Anyway, instead of belly dancing today, I decided to shovel snow since we got about four inches of it. I figured on just doing the back steps, the front porch, and the driveway where my car sits. I'd have done the whole driveway, but I can't work the snowblower.

It was cold (the temperature actually dropped about four degrees while I was out) and it was windy (I know this because the snow I shoveled kept blowing back into my face), but I was sweating. Took me about twenty minutes to do it all. It was a great work out.

And I have no doubt I'll sleep tonight.

I was ready to sleep before I even got the shovel put alway.