Archive for February, 2010

First and foremost, thank you so much for all the kind posts yesterday in regards to my commuting adventure. It has really meant a lot to read all the support and well wishes. They are calling for more snow on Monday night/Tuesday morning and I can assure you I won’t be driving in it.

So let me share some pictures I took the other night of “The Brothers”, that is what I call our two cats (and yes they really are brothers).

I rarely post about them, not because I don’t love them but because they really don’t do anything crazy like the dogs, well except race around the house all night jumping from place to place waking everyone up and causing the dogs to get all hyper, and then there is the fact that I can knit all new cats out the amount of fur those two shed. I swear they shed a new coat on a daily basis so that the inside of our home looks much like it looks outside these days, oh yea they do like to hide from the dogs and then dart out as the dogs cross their paths, and lets not forget the cuddle factor. These two are sleep cuddlers and they are heavy sleep cuddlers, when they fall asleep it is like dead weight and you can’t roll over or move or anything and they are certainly have the sound sleep thing down, they are impossible to wake up so you are stuck under the blankets unable to move because of them LOL..

So actually, there are many stories I could tell about “The Brothers” but today, lets just start with a reminder of how cute they both are. Piper is on the far left with the black freckle under his nose, Ripley on the far right. It is hard to see in this photo but Piper weighs at least 6 pounds more than Ripley, maybe even more.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Friday. I have taken the day of of work so that I will have a nice long weekend.

We here in Richmond, VA were to get a dusting of snow this morning at the most. That is what the weatherman were saying all week so when I woke this morning and looked outside I was not surprised to see just a very thin layer of snow on the car. An hour later I was ready to leave for work and it all still looked good so off I went.

MISTAKE

The first 6 miles of my 9 mile commute was nothing to worry about, it was certainly snowing harder and the roads were getting covered but I was moving right along. As I entered the city of Richmond, I did notice the roads worsening, I continued on and then when I was only a 1/2 mile from the office and I could see the roof of the building, it happened..

A hill, (a hill that I really didn’t realize was a hill even though I drive up it every day) and the cars in front of me start to break and then I saw why. There were several cars just stuck and sliding everywhere. Apparently the hill had frozen up and was now a sheet of ice. Everyone was slammed on their breaks so I had no choice but to do the same and with that I became stuck in the middle of a 2 lane road, uphill, blocking traffic and every time I tried to move my car it just sat there or slide sideways. There was nothing to do but wait for help. Surely some nice soul would help me out, boy how wrong I was.

I called my office to let them know I was stuck, where I was and that I would be late. As I am talking to a co-worker this man, about 30-35 comes up to my passenger window. I crack it open and the man starts cursing and hollering at me, using the “F” word over and over and starts hitting the hood of my car with his fists telling me to get the “F” out of the road etc. My coworker can hear this and she is now freaking out. The guys yells again at me for about 10 seconds and then just turns around and walks away (I saw him get into his truck and drive over a sidewalk to get around me but I couldn’t get his plate numbers). I am totally in tears at this point so I tell my coworker he is gone and I am fine but I need to call her back after I calm down and breath. Not two minutes later my boss calls me and tells me that he and another coworker are walking over and to lock my car, don’t talk to anyone, etc. etc.. Now understand we are now into heavy, heavy snow (the news said it was 3″ in that one hour that fell, all totally unexpected) and the wind was howling. 15 minutes later my boss and co-worker arrive and they somehow manage to push, pull, slide and move my car into a parking lot adjacent to this hill, all without hitting any of the other 15-18 cars around me. We then lock up the car and walked to the office.

So three hours later I am staring out the window from my desk at the gorgeous sunbeams on the river, the roads are all clear and my car is in the office parking garage all warm and safe (we walked over and got it). I was very lucky, several co-workers had accidents during the commute, many more had their cars get stuck miles from the office and sat in them for well over an 2 hours until the roads were ok to drive on.. I still wish I could explain this man and his road rage and I am truly greatful he didn’t try and hurt me, I am just puzzled by the entire event.

Today, my boss got the hero respect he deserved but I told him that tomorrow I will go back to ignoring and smarting off to him, just like we like it.. oh I also told him will NEVER drive to work again if there is any snow falling. What a adventure, what a day..

For POTD I am showing the beauty that snow can be, as we have more snow on the way and it really can be beautiful and calming (from the comfort of ones home).

Please continue to stay safe.. Spring is out there somewhere, for all of us!!

In honor of the ice/sleet/rain/snow event we are to receive overnight I offer up a different look.

This ice formation was taken in my backyard, after this past weekends snowstorm. To me it was if a splash of water froze in time…