Melt

Yesterday I took the bus to work after four days of working at home. I missed the 8:10 bus because Jack refuses to let me wear sweatpants to work so I had to change into jeans. I normally dress up and wear a skirt to work, but I’m in tech where the dress code is “not pajamas or beachwear.” The former president wore Lululemon. I wanted to be warm in case I had to walk a mile and a half home from the train.

When I left the house, our street was covered in black ice. Our street was better than most as the night before we got out with the neighbors and shoveled the street since the city doesn’t plow side streets. I was wearing boots and walked gingerly so I wouldn’t slip. On the bus, I was engrossed in a New Yorker article about the guy who wrote “The Woman in the Window.”

When I got downtown, I walked out of the bus tunnel and there was no snow. None. Not a flake. It was trippy. I later told the Boy it was like flying to San Diego from Seattle, leaving the cold and rain and landing someplace warm and dry.

“Except it was a ten minute ride through a tunnel,” he said.

Yes.

 I searched and I found small bits of snow in a few places:

This morning, I walked Fox in our neighborhood and some of the sidewalks were so icy it was like I needed crampons.

Snow Day 2 and Work From Home

We had another wintery day here in the Pacific Northwest.

I am so done with this.

I worked from home again today. Here are a few random observations.

• The snow is dominating our consciousness, for good and bad. 
• I am glad I live in an era with weather forecasting. As much as Cliff Mass is having a hard time predicting this storm, can you imagine living in a time when we didn't know that arctic air was coming down the Fraser River Valley and would converge with the warm air off of the Pacific creating this weather system? I am impressed. Maybe more people will now study weather forecasting. That would make Cliff Mass happy.
• There is a new, insidious form of ice that I've discovered. Trees are covered with snow, and yesterday the temperature got to be around 33 so some of this snow melted and dripped on the sidewalks. Then it immediately froze into evil little ice lumps. There is no god. Or if there it, he has a sick sense of humor. He. A woman god wouldn't do this. She'd make a world with typhoon-free Maui climate, which wouldn't make the Boy happy. He'd miss snow in the mountains.
• The barista at the coffee shop around the corner from house keeps showing up for work. She drives in from Capitol Hill. I go in and buy something every morning to show my appreciation for her being there. I tip her 25%, and it seems insufficient.
• I wonder what is going to happen to our local economy (as aside from my barista) as we are not spending any money.
• I am realizing how much we eat dinner out now that someone has to cook dinner every night. :( This is a total drag. Last Monday when it snowed a wee bit and the Boy and I stayed at the condo, we went to dinner at the Virginia Inn. It looks old and stuffy, but the food was delicious. I had duck confit with lentils and the Boy has risotto with chanterelles. While most people were clearing out grcoery shelves last Thursday night before the Friday storm, the Boy and I went out for chinese food and ordered enough food for leftovers for a few days.
• The good news is that we are not spending much. Snow makes money dieting easy.
• I misplaced my make-up this morning and I wondered if Sephora at U Village would be open today. 
• Yes, I wore make-up today when I worked from home.

The Snow is Getting Real

It snowed about six inches Friday and it snowed about four inches this afternoon. The snow was predicted to start at 4:00, and right on schedule like a Swiss train, it started to snow. It is supposed to snow more later this week.

When the snow started, it was tiny flurries and there was only expected to be one inchced of accumulation. Wrong.

I am not excited about this.

I wonder when we are going to melt, if ever. Of course, it will warm up, but then it will re-freeze leaving everything covered in a sheet of ice.

Jack and I got out to shovel the sidewalks. At least, I haven't hurt my back or anything else while cleaning up the snow. I remember when I grew up in the midwest, there were men who would shovel snow and drop dead from heart attacks. These were guys who hadn't lifted anything heavier than a beer over the previous year and then they would go out and do a cardio/weight lifting combo in the cold. No wonder they keeled over.

I am raedy for this to be over.

Snow Day = Work from Home = ?

Yesterday, Seattle expected the snowstorm of the quarter-century, which means like six to ten inches. Having been raised as a hearty and hale Chicagoan, I have lived through multiple blizzards.

When I googled the definition of a blizzard (because that is what bloggers do), I found this:

A winter storm warning for one to three inches. Seriously. I lived in Chicago when we had one to three feet of snow. We also had flat terrain, frozen ground and snow plows. The clothes weren't nearly as high tech as they are now. I remember my mom wrapping our feet in old plastic bread bags before we slid them into out boots to keep our feet dry. I remember jumping off our second story deck into a snow drift with my dad hold us above ledge. After we moved to Columbus, Ohio, I remember taking two hundred mile road trips to Chicago over Christmas to visit my grandparents during blizzards which are different than snowstorms, apparently. According to Wikipedia:

Given the snow as forecast several days ahead of time, everyone on my team planned to work from home on Friday given the impending snowstorm. My manager posted this on our team's chat page:

This is highly relatable as last night my former Iowan husband grilled steak outside for dinner and this morning the governor declared a state of emergency. Not kidding.

I worked from home yesterday for the first time in the year and a half that I started my new job (which isn't so new anymore) as I got a laptop a few weeks ago. There is a wonderful New Yorker humor piece where a man calls 911 because he is working from home which is true and scary and hilarious. Until you work from home and live it.

I fail to see the appeal of working from home. I got up, took a shower, washed my hair and I even put on make-up and jewelry for no one except myself. Sure, I skipped the commute, but I also skipped lunch because I didn't have my co-workers there pushing me along to stop promptly at noon to eat, play cards, and/or walk to the market. I worked through the noon hour because I wasn't hungry. Then at 2:00, I was on a phone call when I became ravenous. We were sharing a computer screen so I couldn't just click the mute, walk into the kitchen and make lunch. So I ate lunch at 3:00. One of my remote co-workers who lives in the Central time zone said "You are eating lunch now?"

Yeah. Because I suck at this.

And then I worked until 6:00 p.m. because like I didn't need to stop. I was on a roll. And now, Saturday morning, my computer is here in the corner, beckoning me to work. I am supposed to finish something by end of day Monday which could take one hour or could take six depending on what I uncover in the data. So should I work on it this weekend? Maybe start this weekend and then double check it Monday? If I work now, I will be undisturbed by meetings and emails. My head hurts thinking about it.

And the worst thing is that snow days used to mean no work or school. Now that I have a laptop, I can work instead of baking cookies, working on a quilt or doing a jigsaw puzzle. That is NOT a snow day. God made snow days to make us stop, and now that is not possible. Oh the existential crisis I am having!

...which was wiped out when I went for a walk in the quiet beauty of my neighborhood blanketed in snow.

Fox looks like a honeybee except his sacs are snowballs not pollen.