I'm not sure what the wind chill was this late afternoon, but it was COLD! We had our first snow day today, the earliest in years. The city up north was paralyzed quickly; so quickly the school buses got stranded in the city, and nearly 2000 children spent their night in schools, fire halls, churches. The kids seemed to be doing OK, but I imagine parents were frantic.
The kids get a snow day, but in our program, staff has to report or use a vacation or personal day. We had about 2/3 of the staff in, and everyone brought food. It was a grand party in the middle of the day. Inspite of that, a lot of work got done by teachers without the children around.
As usual, the people from the farthest away got in; the people 4 miles away didn't. Funny. The snowplow that keeps the parking lot clear broke down, so latecomers had to park in the snow drifts. I was early, so I parked in the circle around the playground. That's plowed by a different person.
When I got home, the wind had returned, and with the sun dropping, it was frigid as I shoveled my way to the newspaper box. The sun would come out for 2 or 3 minutes, then a big black cloud would fill the sky and I'd get covered with snow for several minutes. Then it would clear again.
As long as my family is safe, I love the snow. The fir trees are beautiful, and the bushes that hadn't lost their leaves are big mounds of fluffy white. The amazing thing in Big City, with all the kids stranded, the motorists who spend 17 or more hours in their cars, the people walking who abandoned their cars on the Thruway, there were no deaths or serious injuries.
In these humungous storms, often the best of human nature comes out. I hold my breath when I hear the fire whistle, however; both for the rescuers and the to-be-rescued. And there are always those idiots who think that "the Thruway is closed" doesn't mean they can't use it, and get into a mess, making it worse for everyone else.
Tomorrow, God Willing, my family will get here. They all are coming from well south of here, and this is a localized "lake effect" snow. We are to get more tonight, then in the a.m. the snow band will move north towards Big City again.
I'll enjoy curling up in my "bed-in-a-bag tonight!"
Life is good. Amen
Angelfire has become so slow to load, I'm just going to type right on the text block, instead of off-line, as I usually do.
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