They've been talking about this monster storm "the size of Texas" for almost a week. 30cm of snow, mad traffic issues, stock up on bottled water and groceries, hide your kids, hide your wives...mayhem! I wondered about cancelling our 6am practice but since I we had discussed it on the first day and vetoed skipping due to weather and no one messaged, I decided to go. I set the alarm for 5:10 but was woken up by thunder around 4:45 - a crazy boom that shook my walls and rolled into the distance for over a minute. It was so uncharacteristic of thunder that I wondered if there'd actually been an explosion at the Petro Can plant.
I looked outside and there really wasn't a lot of snow - somewhere less than 10cm. Still, I threw a shovel in the back of the Pathfinder in case I got plowed in somewhere. I'd put the truck in 4-wheel drive before backing it into the garage last night but really, all these precautions were unnecessary.
The first thing I heard on 680 was that the Gardner was closed in both directions between the Humber and Kipling. A hydro pole had been knocked down, dragging the wires across all lanes. My destination was Islington but decided to go straight across Lakeshore instead of getting caught in the bottleneck at Kipling. I got to Pete's gym at 6:00 and of course no one was there. I texted Peter and he responded right away - he figured we wouldn't bother because of the weather. I felt really bad but going back home wasn't an option and the doors wouldn't be open at work for another hour. Pete came and opened up - gave me a workout and went outside to shovel the walk in front of the gym. He's gotten the furnace installed now so the gym is warm.
I heard on the radio that pretty much all of the school boards had finally caved and declared a snow day for kids. We, on the other hand, had received an email from our boss the night before asking those of us who live close to the office to arrive a half hour early to cover for others who might get stuck in traffic.
The only people in the entire building were the I.T. department. Nameir came and asked me to take a look at the board website. It said all schools and admin offices were closed. It took our bosses approximately 10 minutes to send us an email to go home. It was barely 8:00 so I said I was going to stick around for awhile to let the plows clear the roads. It was nice and quiet - why go back out on the road? One of the guys who lives in the apartments behind our office mocked us "Haha, see you suckers, I'm going home" and I pointed out, yeah to your children and wife, stuck in an apartment. I was surprised when he sat back down and called his wife to say he had to stay at work a little longer.
Our boss said if we wanted to stay for a little while and clear up some work, she'd give us a day off at another time. Most of us took her up on it. Eventually the caretaker realized we were in the building. He was shutting it down so he kicked us out around 10. Still in that short period we had cleared up a lot of outstanding work. Yay us!
I stopped at Starbucks, then went by Carrie and Attila's on my way home. I wanted to drop off a Food & Drink magazine I'd picked up at the LCBO for Carrie and some Boo boo bling (registered trademark) from Sephora. That was for Charlie. It's little rhinestone flowers you stick on bandages to sparkle them up. They were having a pyjama day - lounging around the house. Carrie is just two days away from starting her maternity leave. To say she's looking forward to it is an understatement although I understand that she's not too comfortable at the moment with some hip/pelvis issues.
By now the roads were clean and green (that's right - cb radio talk for "roads are clear". The '70s never leave you). The plows had been by at least twice and scraped them down to pavement. Ever notice how the combination of a clean road and salt actually makes the road *more* slippery? The driving's better with a layer of snow on them. Not that it mattered - there was no one out there. I went to the grocery store and bought a ton of fruit - I've been craving it. That weekend in Calgary really threw me off. I slept almost all afternoon. Good because I've been averaging about 3 hours a night since last Friday.
When I woke up, I went outside to find that my next door neighbour had shovelled my driveway! I felt kind of bad because I'm sure he pictured me out working or whatever, when I was just metres away, curled up like a slug in the comfy chair. Anyway, it was the perfect opportunity to take over the art supplies I'd picked up for their daughters at christmas. Mini-easels and canvasses with brushes and acrylic paints. When he opened the door, Ian just peaked through the crack and said he just had his longjohns on. They had taken the kids x-country skiing on the river. I said no worries and thanked him, handing over the bag for the girls. They showed up a few minutes later, coming from the marsh where they were walking the dog. They told me there were waves coming in on the lake from 200m out - pretty much like last night when I saw this guy surfing.
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