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01/29/2008: "The Wrath of Winter"
Heather told me that we were in for a heck of a storm tonight, and she was not kidding.
I went to the office around 8:15 PM tonight to try to catch up from four sick days. There was a medium rain, with temperatures in the 40’s. The air had felt warm enough that I did not wear a jacket when I had gone out earlier to pick up dinner for the family. So I was in perfect office bliss for about two hours and fifteen minutes.
I packed up at 10:30, and was shocked at the sight that greeted me at the rear foyer: the windows were all frosted/snowed over. I took a step outside, and leapt into the three inches of blown accumulation on the back steps. The wind was fierce off the roof, and I was nearly blinded by blowing snow just walking the thirty or forty yards to my van.
There was a layer of ice all over the van, and I knew I would have to scrape the windows unless I wanted to hide for thirty minutes before they defrosted themselves. My face was quite literally in pain after a minute out in the wind and bullet-like snow. I even put on a pair of sunglasses to help protect my eyes. It was rough out there. I had a warm jacket, but no hood and no gloves.
Once I felt like I could see out the window, I began the precarious trek through the parking lot. Honestly, it was nearly a whiteout just getting to the road. The road along the lake was surprisingly passable, but once I came to my road, I could tell it was slowly drifting shut. I saw hundreds of tiny little snowdrifts that will eventually merge together and create quite a bit of work for some city snowplow in a few hours.
Just as I suspected, our driveway was well on its way to drifting shut as well. The wind howled, but at least there was no whiteout at home. Luckily, I was able to do a more thorough job of scraping the ice off the van in the garage while protected from the elements.
So, I’m sitting in my home office listening to that wind how and that snow blow. Unless it stops soon, the kids will most certainly be home tomorrow. If it’s this brutal here in town, how must it be in the country right now?