Weblog 209
February 7, 2010~ 12:00am
(No....it's not midnight, not Sunday yet....) but I'm going stir crazy here, having been house-bound for 2 days with the snow storm that pounded the east coast... so I'm getting this out early. It's something to do. LOL!!! (Plus, I'm beat from shoveling, and want to hit the hay early so I can pick up where I left off tomorrow.)
It hit us....it DID! The 'Storm of the Century'- (so far, anyway ....but the century is still young). Looked out my window on Saturday morning, and this is what I saw, looking toward the back carport and the hill behind it.
Yep. That's my car, mounded with 2 ft of snow. Wow. This is gonna take a HUGE amount of digging out! There was no traffic moving on Route 88 when I looked out the front door either. And it's a well-trafficked road.
That's Lou's car, buried in drifts and sitting silent in his front yard driveway. Just a little up and beyond that, there's Forum Street with its painted sign for Harper Printing
the scene barely recognizable under its white blanket. Lots of folks here in southwestern Pennsylvania are without power, so I'm very lucky... (so far.....fingers crossed)...with lines down and fallen trees. This is one time I am very, very grateful to have cut down my mammoth pine tree this past spring. Good Lord, that thing would've crushed this house if it had come down, covered in tons of snow.
Just for contrast with all that frigid ice blue outside, I snapped a few pictures of what I was looking at inside the house, reveling in my coziness....
That's the dining room wall, and on the other side of those drapes, that first picture above. Man o man......being holed-up is sure sweet when you don't have to go outside on days like these. I snapped my living room (those other two pictures above are on the other side of the front window you're looking at)
You can see my PROUD NEW TV ANTENNA, right there on the stereo credenza. (Can't see it? It's that black thing on the right end. LOL!!!) I'm like a little kid with my resurrected television reception. Now I can sit at home and watch the news about this blizzard-- which has damn near paralyzed the whole state.
What I do want to show you though, is this photo anomaly that some folks would call an 'orb'....and many would simply say 'hogwash' but I'm a believer, and I think this picture snapped only seconds from the one above..
shows a big white orb on the wall above the TV. So what... glitch, you say? Dust on the lens? All I know is when I'd gotten up and looked outside for the first time about 15 minutes before this picture, the first thing I thought of was how my buddy Beethoven would have LOVED all the excitement! How I'd scoop him up to a window, and show him the outside, cooing about the deep snow, remembering how that little cat LOVED the excitement he picked up on, his behavior mirroring that of his owner every time. Do I think that small energy ball is Beethoven? Yes. Yes I do. He died there, right in front of the stereo...and I know my buddy is still sharing this stuff with me.
And it made me happy. And yes, it made me cry.
February 7, 2010~ 12:00am
(No, still not Sunday, but I got some good pictures from Holly, Gary and Co. Nothing brings out kids and dogs better than SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!
Living it UP! Sloshing and wading through the mounds of white stuff, and having a BALL! (Those are standard poodles by the way. They stand at least 3 ft tall.) I remember being little and just loving that kind of horseplay in the snow. (Now.....all I can do is slug through the stuff shovelful by shovelful, and hope I don't keel over with a heartattack. LOL!!) One thing I will say though....when I caught the view across the road late in the afternoon when the sun was shining through the trees....
sheer magic. That's for sure....wonderland beautiful!
February 7, 2010~ 12:00am
BREAKING NEWS!! Holy crap! After trying to reach my mother all day long- must've call the Assisted Living 30 times, and getting, "I'm sorry. All circuits are busy now"- I figured all the folks were calling relatives and relatives were calling them to see how everyone's faring, and to cancel visits, etc.
Well, my cell phone just rang.
It was my sister calling to tell me mum was with HER! Kathy, (that dear heart) and her husband Bob braved the roads-- (her's was plowed sometime after 2 pm today) --and picked mum up because her facility was without power all day....running on generators, but no TV, no phones.....mum must have been frantic. (You take away television and her world closes like a lens.)
She's safe and sound at my sister's, and fully aware of how bad things are out there, and she certainly knows why we won't be seeing each other tomorrow.
A BIG THANKS to my big sister (once again) for handling one more emergency. Holy cow. Everyone's safe and sound. Now I can go to sleep and sleep well.
Start on more of the 'dig out' tomorrow.
February 7, 2010~ 6:15pm
After a hour of punishing shoveling yesterday, and and hour and a half today.....I CAN SEE MY CAR and my STEPS!
And my 2ft.deep walkway up to those steps! I don't feel quite as stranded, though the alley is still a mess, and even Route 88 is nothing right now but rutted, icy tire tracks. There's not many out on the roads- (thank heaven) -the roads are crappy as can be, and very dangerous in their present state.
I dug and dug, and when I'd started on a piece at the end of the carport about 10 feet across, hoping to extend my passage out to the two ruts some soul managed to carve through there, a neighbor's married son showed up like BATMAN in an emergency, with a big-assed snow blower. An industrial sized one. He went to work on the street, which is now much better looking- if not safer. I still don't wanna risk getting stuck out there in sub-freezing weather, so I've decided to stay home tomorrow too. (There shouldn't be many patients coming into the offices with this SNOWMAGGEDON going on, and I'm banking on a lighter work build-up when I do get in on Tuesday. Schools are cancelled for tomorrow, and the city under normal circumstances does squat with the roads when there's no school.
Still....it is pretty..in a deserted, 'The Thing' movie kind of way...LOL!!!
No matter what else you might say about it....there's a whole lot to the atmosphere of the thing, the muting of sounds, the conformity and limitation of color
....the poet in me loves it. And the time alone has been peaceful (when I wasn't shoveling my butt off, wrapped up like the kid in 'The Christmas Movie' with 2 pairs of gloves, 3 pairs of sock, two pants, a hood and muffler and vintage sunglasses I found in the china closet that make me look like THE FLY...) -THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING FUNNY ABOUT EVERYTHING, no matter how dire seeming. (Oh, and yes, my mother is still staying with Kathy-- watching the Superbowl right now. Power remains out at the assisted living. She's on a sleep-over, and sounds very happy.)
February 9, 2010~ 4:30pm
It's Tuesday afternoon. I'm still home. Judging by what I saw outside yesterday- and with a new storm coming through predicted for midday today, I opted to stay safe.
However... when I got up at 10:30 and looked outside....I saw ROAD! BLACK ASPHALT again on Rt. 88!...(albeit, just two tracks, with mounds of packed ice between) but real, actual road surface!
I took that small window of opportunity around noontime, to get dressed, get in the car and venture about a half-mile up the road to fill the tank. (Gas tank was only a quarter full, and if there is any chance at all of me getting out and going to work tomorrow, I wanted the tank filled so I won't worry if it's a long, stalled commute.) These have been snow days for me.....
but unlike that happy kid above, there's no official declaration for adults who choose to be prudent, or who- as I was -just plain stuck in a carport and a back alley that nobody thinks about when it snows....I'm on my own. Discouragingly, the snow has started to come down again. All I can hope for is perhaps 4" or so that the salt trucks are able to make navigable by rush hour tomorrow, and not the '8 to 10 inches' they're predicting is possible, otherwise I may be here yet again.
And what have I been up to?
Well.....I cut about 3" off my hair, I watched a four hour presentation of Masterpiece Theatre's marvelous capturing of Jane Austen's 'Emma', but cooped up here indefinitely.... hair-cutting may be just the start. (As I told my boss yesterday when I called off for today- "Who knows what I'll take it into my head to do. Maybe perform gall bladder surgery on myself......" LOL!!!)
Last Thursday just when my work was finally caught up... here I am once again behind the eight ball and probably believed to be a coward as well. Can't be helped. I'm not as intrepid as when I was younger. And man o man, at times like these, I sure do miss my little 4-wheel drive Tracker. {{{{{sigh}}}}}}
February 10, 2010~ 5:30pm
I went to work today......but almost from the start, when I got stuck in the alley, I knew it was a mistake. Yes... we got more snow.
When I looked out at 4 am....nothing. When I left at 6 am, there was 2 inches on the ground, but I thought I could just 'soldier through'.
The trip BACK, however-- was much, much worse. It snowed on and off all day, dropping at least another 6 inches. On the main roads that was bad enough, but when I made my turn into the alley I stuck like glue, tires spinning. I got out and shoveled around the tires and was able to rock it free, but then I got stuck NUMEROUS times-- burning rubber --until I was so badly dug in (there's about a foot of snow still in the alley, with slushy ruts and ice underneath that) --I was tempted to lock it an leave it. City would never ticket me.....that's the damn problem.....THE CITY DOESN'T KNOW THIS STREET EXISTS.
When I was just about in tears from anger and frustration, a neighbor boy, his dad, and 81 YEAR OLD LOU (my good Samaritan next door neighbor) came out to push as I slowly made my way only three houses down to pull damn near DIAGNONALLY into the carport- and throw the sumabitch in park.
NOPE. NOT GOING IN TOMORROW, THAT'S FOR DAMN SURE!!!!!!
February 11, 2010~ 7:15am
Home again. I thought you might enjoy my personal two-bird salute to Mayor Ravenstahl of the city of Pittsburgh. This was snapped by my good coworker/friend Darlene, taken yesterday in the early morning (when I was able to claw my way out and into work) with her new Nikkon camera. Here I am in the parking lot....
....cigarette in the mouth, shit-eating grin on my face, and giving a two-handed HELLO to the man who made this snowbound episode a reality: LUKE 'RAVE 'N STALL'.....the do-nothing boy mayor. The fukup.
Yep. Him.
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
(No....it's not midnight, not Sunday yet....) but I'm going stir crazy here, having been house-bound for 2 days with the snow storm that pounded the east coast... so I'm getting this out early. It's something to do. LOL!!! (Plus, I'm beat from shoveling, and want to hit the hay early so I can pick up where I left off tomorrow.)
It hit us....it DID! The 'Storm of the Century'- (so far, anyway ....but the century is still young). Looked out my window on Saturday morning, and this is what I saw, looking toward the back carport and the hill behind it.
Yep. That's my car, mounded with 2 ft of snow. Wow. This is gonna take a HUGE amount of digging out! There was no traffic moving on Route 88 when I looked out the front door either. And it's a well-trafficked road.
That's Lou's car, buried in drifts and sitting silent in his front yard driveway. Just a little up and beyond that, there's Forum Street with its painted sign for Harper Printing
the scene barely recognizable under its white blanket. Lots of folks here in southwestern Pennsylvania are without power, so I'm very lucky... (so far.....fingers crossed)...with lines down and fallen trees. This is one time I am very, very grateful to have cut down my mammoth pine tree this past spring. Good Lord, that thing would've crushed this house if it had come down, covered in tons of snow.
Just for contrast with all that frigid ice blue outside, I snapped a few pictures of what I was looking at inside the house, reveling in my coziness....
That's the dining room wall, and on the other side of those drapes, that first picture above. Man o man......being holed-up is sure sweet when you don't have to go outside on days like these. I snapped my living room (those other two pictures above are on the other side of the front window you're looking at)
You can see my PROUD NEW TV ANTENNA, right there on the stereo credenza. (Can't see it? It's that black thing on the right end. LOL!!!) I'm like a little kid with my resurrected television reception. Now I can sit at home and watch the news about this blizzard-- which has damn near paralyzed the whole state.
What I do want to show you though, is this photo anomaly that some folks would call an 'orb'....and many would simply say 'hogwash' but I'm a believer, and I think this picture snapped only seconds from the one above..
shows a big white orb on the wall above the TV. So what... glitch, you say? Dust on the lens? All I know is when I'd gotten up and looked outside for the first time about 15 minutes before this picture, the first thing I thought of was how my buddy Beethoven would have LOVED all the excitement! How I'd scoop him up to a window, and show him the outside, cooing about the deep snow, remembering how that little cat LOVED the excitement he picked up on, his behavior mirroring that of his owner every time. Do I think that small energy ball is Beethoven? Yes. Yes I do. He died there, right in front of the stereo...and I know my buddy is still sharing this stuff with me.
And it made me happy. And yes, it made me cry.
February 7, 2010~ 12:00am
(No, still not Sunday, but I got some good pictures from Holly, Gary and Co. Nothing brings out kids and dogs better than SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!
Living it UP! Sloshing and wading through the mounds of white stuff, and having a BALL! (Those are standard poodles by the way. They stand at least 3 ft tall.) I remember being little and just loving that kind of horseplay in the snow. (Now.....all I can do is slug through the stuff shovelful by shovelful, and hope I don't keel over with a heartattack. LOL!!) One thing I will say though....when I caught the view across the road late in the afternoon when the sun was shining through the trees....
sheer magic. That's for sure....wonderland beautiful!
February 7, 2010~ 12:00am
BREAKING NEWS!! Holy crap! After trying to reach my mother all day long- must've call the Assisted Living 30 times, and getting, "I'm sorry. All circuits are busy now"- I figured all the folks were calling relatives and relatives were calling them to see how everyone's faring, and to cancel visits, etc.
Well, my cell phone just rang.
It was my sister calling to tell me mum was with HER! Kathy, (that dear heart) and her husband Bob braved the roads-- (her's was plowed sometime after 2 pm today) --and picked mum up because her facility was without power all day....running on generators, but no TV, no phones.....mum must have been frantic. (You take away television and her world closes like a lens.)
She's safe and sound at my sister's, and fully aware of how bad things are out there, and she certainly knows why we won't be seeing each other tomorrow.
A BIG THANKS to my big sister (once again) for handling one more emergency. Holy cow. Everyone's safe and sound. Now I can go to sleep and sleep well.
Start on more of the 'dig out' tomorrow.
February 7, 2010~ 6:15pm
After a hour of punishing shoveling yesterday, and and hour and a half today.....I CAN SEE MY CAR and my STEPS!
And my 2ft.deep walkway up to those steps! I don't feel quite as stranded, though the alley is still a mess, and even Route 88 is nothing right now but rutted, icy tire tracks. There's not many out on the roads- (thank heaven) -the roads are crappy as can be, and very dangerous in their present state.
I dug and dug, and when I'd started on a piece at the end of the carport about 10 feet across, hoping to extend my passage out to the two ruts some soul managed to carve through there, a neighbor's married son showed up like BATMAN in an emergency, with a big-assed snow blower. An industrial sized one. He went to work on the street, which is now much better looking- if not safer. I still don't wanna risk getting stuck out there in sub-freezing weather, so I've decided to stay home tomorrow too. (There shouldn't be many patients coming into the offices with this SNOWMAGGEDON going on, and I'm banking on a lighter work build-up when I do get in on Tuesday. Schools are cancelled for tomorrow, and the city under normal circumstances does squat with the roads when there's no school.
Still....it is pretty..in a deserted, 'The Thing' movie kind of way...LOL!!!
No matter what else you might say about it....there's a whole lot to the atmosphere of the thing, the muting of sounds, the conformity and limitation of color
....the poet in me loves it. And the time alone has been peaceful (when I wasn't shoveling my butt off, wrapped up like the kid in 'The Christmas Movie' with 2 pairs of gloves, 3 pairs of sock, two pants, a hood and muffler and vintage sunglasses I found in the china closet that make me look like THE FLY...) -THERE'S ALWAYS SOMETHING FUNNY ABOUT EVERYTHING, no matter how dire seeming. (Oh, and yes, my mother is still staying with Kathy-- watching the Superbowl right now. Power remains out at the assisted living. She's on a sleep-over, and sounds very happy.)
February 9, 2010~ 4:30pm
It's Tuesday afternoon. I'm still home. Judging by what I saw outside yesterday- and with a new storm coming through predicted for midday today, I opted to stay safe.
However... when I got up at 10:30 and looked outside....I saw ROAD! BLACK ASPHALT again on Rt. 88!...(albeit, just two tracks, with mounds of packed ice between) but real, actual road surface!
I took that small window of opportunity around noontime, to get dressed, get in the car and venture about a half-mile up the road to fill the tank. (Gas tank was only a quarter full, and if there is any chance at all of me getting out and going to work tomorrow, I wanted the tank filled so I won't worry if it's a long, stalled commute.) These have been snow days for me.....
but unlike that happy kid above, there's no official declaration for adults who choose to be prudent, or who- as I was -just plain stuck in a carport and a back alley that nobody thinks about when it snows....I'm on my own. Discouragingly, the snow has started to come down again. All I can hope for is perhaps 4" or so that the salt trucks are able to make navigable by rush hour tomorrow, and not the '8 to 10 inches' they're predicting is possible, otherwise I may be here yet again.
And what have I been up to?
Well.....I cut about 3" off my hair, I watched a four hour presentation of Masterpiece Theatre's marvelous capturing of Jane Austen's 'Emma', but cooped up here indefinitely.... hair-cutting may be just the start. (As I told my boss yesterday when I called off for today- "Who knows what I'll take it into my head to do. Maybe perform gall bladder surgery on myself......" LOL!!!)
Last Thursday just when my work was finally caught up... here I am once again behind the eight ball and probably believed to be a coward as well. Can't be helped. I'm not as intrepid as when I was younger. And man o man, at times like these, I sure do miss my little 4-wheel drive Tracker. {{{{{sigh}}}}}}
February 10, 2010~ 5:30pm
I went to work today......but almost from the start, when I got stuck in the alley, I knew it was a mistake. Yes... we got more snow.
When I looked out at 4 am....nothing. When I left at 6 am, there was 2 inches on the ground, but I thought I could just 'soldier through'.
The trip BACK, however-- was much, much worse. It snowed on and off all day, dropping at least another 6 inches. On the main roads that was bad enough, but when I made my turn into the alley I stuck like glue, tires spinning. I got out and shoveled around the tires and was able to rock it free, but then I got stuck NUMEROUS times-- burning rubber --until I was so badly dug in (there's about a foot of snow still in the alley, with slushy ruts and ice underneath that) --I was tempted to lock it an leave it. City would never ticket me.....that's the damn problem.....THE CITY DOESN'T KNOW THIS STREET EXISTS.
When I was just about in tears from anger and frustration, a neighbor boy, his dad, and 81 YEAR OLD LOU (my good Samaritan next door neighbor) came out to push as I slowly made my way only three houses down to pull damn near DIAGNONALLY into the carport- and throw the sumabitch in park.
NOPE. NOT GOING IN TOMORROW, THAT'S FOR DAMN SURE!!!!!!
February 11, 2010~ 7:15am
Home again. I thought you might enjoy my personal two-bird salute to Mayor Ravenstahl of the city of Pittsburgh. This was snapped by my good coworker/friend Darlene, taken yesterday in the early morning (when I was able to claw my way out and into work) with her new Nikkon camera. Here I am in the parking lot....
....cigarette in the mouth, shit-eating grin on my face, and giving a two-handed HELLO to the man who made this snowbound episode a reality: LUKE 'RAVE 'N STALL'.....the do-nothing boy mayor. The fukup.
Yep. Him.
(Return To Weekly Archives)
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