A week ago, a forecast of 49 degrees would have been considered a cold day – now it sounds downright balmy!
I am not making light of the madness that went on in Birmingham and Atlanta this week (okay, I sorta am, but I really do appreciate how bad it was). My sister spent seven hours trying to get home from work on Tuesday, and she was actually one of the LUCKY ones. When I woke up Wednesday morning and logged onto Facebook, my news feed was flooded with horror stories of friends that spent 10, 12, 15 or more hours trying to get home, folks who had to leave their babies overnight at daycare, folks that spent the night in the homes of strangers – you name it. Read some of the stories AL.com collected here to renew your faith in community.
But we’re about to embark on Day Three and I’m getting a little … punchy.
We were lucky because the forecast was for the worst of the weather to hit us (which it didn’t), so our schools and most businesses closed all day. The freezing rain didn’t start until around noon and knowing that we’d probably be stuck home for awhile, I loaded Nathan up at 8:00 and headed for Chick-fil-A and Target. I didn’t bother to get him dressed; he just went in his Santa jammies.
When I got to Target, I spotted sales on several wines and picked up a bottle along with a pack of diapers. Yep, I was That Lady with her three year old in Santa pajamas buying wine and diapers at 8:30 in the morning during the winter storm warning. I saw exactly three other customers: (1) a mom with a child Nathan’s size, (2) a man buying three jumbo cartons of diapers, and (3) an older lady who told me she was from Minnesota. Of course.
The Chick-fil-A drive-thru line, however, was packed.
We mostly just sat around all day and watched the news. Well, I did – Sarah Kate began a masterpiece re-creation of our house in Roblox and Nathan spent about twelve straight hours on the iPad (I’m not proud). Then around midday, I noticed this:
Pretty, right? Not if you’ve ever been an electric utility engineer.
I’ve never regretted leaving my job at Alabama Power Company after Sarah Kate was born, but when I see something like that (and the snow piling up at my dad’s house near Birmingham that we got to watch via FaceTime), I sing Hallelujah! that I’m not part of that storm restoration world anymore. It’s plenty bad enough to have a husband who does it.
Sarah Kate was excited about the possibility of snow (we didn’t get any, by the way, although Nathan had a grand ol’ time signing and saying “Snow!” and I never bothered to correct him), and the falling sleet enchanted her – I was just hoping we kept our heat. Around 4:00, Mr. Andi texted to let me know they were starting to see some storm-related outages, so I went ahead and lit the gas logs as our backup, just in case.
The rest of the night – like the day – was uneventful.
The kids slept together in the hide-a-bed, staying up late to watch a movie, Mr. Andi was at work, and the dogs resisted going potty in the sleet-covered grass, but all in all it was a pretty ordinary night. When we got up on Wednesday morning the house looked kind of pretty, but all of that white stuff? Not snow.
The wheels started to come off around 9:00 a.m. Wednesday morning when Nathan vomited all over me and his Santa jammies (yes, the same ones he wore to Target the day before – I’m not proud) then passed out on the living room rug. I pulled out all the stops and baked cookies that pretty much no one but me ate, which was not a particularly good complement to the my low FitBit step count from being cooped up in the house for two days.
The day got a little brighter when Mr. Andi appeared at dinner time with a bottle of the private reserve label wine from one of our local restaurants, Pinzone’s. The chef/owner and his wife are marathoners and when he couldn’t drive to go check on the restaurant this morning he decided to run to work instead … 10 miles in the ice.
Mr. Andi spotted him trotting down the side of the highway on the edge of town and gave him a ride the rest of the way, so he thanked him with a bottle of wine. While he was there, he decided to whip up some food and invite the utility, public works, and first responder Mayberry employees in to eat. Great guy. And great wine. 🙂
Seriously. My cheap crappy wine glass is SO not worthy!
Today’s forecast is for A Big Thaw but the roads are still slick so at home we shall be once more. I don’t relish another day of Roblox and Timmy Time
