eftychia: Me in kilt and poofy shirt, facing away, playing acoustic guitar behind head (Default)
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posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 09:45pm on 2003-02-21

I haven't had an especially bad day, but neither have I really had a good day. I should've spent part of the day in the company of friends. I had a performance scheduled for today (so at least I'd have been with my bandmates, who are friends, and the pleasure of performing), but it was postponed to March because of all the snow still in the way, and the change didn't happen early enough for me to round up something more traditional to do.

So I spoke to somebody significant for a while on the phone (landline -- I actually unplugged my modem!), made breakfast, made a few more phone calls, read my email, really really wanted a nap but decided I had to do the errands I'd been putting off all week first, and went to dig my car out for the first time since Sunday. I got one wheel and half the front bumper clear (for a distance of about four inches), and found the snow on the passenger side was lower than the door frame, so I figured that was probably enough. It was. I climbed in from the passenger side, then managed, with some maneuvering, to drive out of snow as high as the bottoms of my doors (deeper than that on the left, which was the direction I had to go) with just barely enough digging.

I went to the pharmacy, and the photo lab, and the nail salon, and the grocery store, and discovered I can't even pay as many bills this month as I thought I could (anyone want to help me with my HMO premium before I lose my coverage?), and came home and realized I was not going to be able to dig a spot for my car in front of my house (it's been parked around the corner at the other end of the block all week) with the way the snow has been packed by the plow and weighted down by the rain and turned to ice too hard for my snow shovel to cut on the bottom. (At least, if I planned on getting out of bed sometime in the next three days, I couldn't push my body that hard. And I'm out of Vicodin, so I'd better not induce a fibromyalgia flare.) I tried ramming the car in, but a ToyAuto just isn't as heavy as the Pontiac I learned that trick in, and I didn't get close enough to the curb to feel like it was safely out of the way of traffic, So I took a while wiggling the car off the ice, then ramming a space with my rear bumper (pausing every time a clump of traffic came by), so I could try again. Now the car's not straight -- the back is sticking out a little -- but I think it's straight enough and close enough to the curb (which I can't really find). I had to climb out the passenger door, of course. (I live on the left side of a one-way street.)

I really hate "attack seat belts". Climbing in and out of the driver's seat from the passenger door is a Major Hassle. It shouldn't be, even with a console shift. Feh.

Anyhow, I'm home, I'm tired, some folks I tried to get ahold of aren't in phone-reach at the moment, and ... did I mention tired? Very tired. (Driving anywhere in Baltimore took four times as long as it should've, between the reduced amount of useable pavement, the rain/fog, the pedestrians who still don't have sidewalks outside of downtown, and accidentally winding up doing part of my day during rush hour.) But I did get email from my mother, which doesn't happen every year, and a phone call from my brother (once I bought more airtime for the phone he gave me for Christmas). And I got to start the day with a warmfuzzy phone call while finishing waking up.

Like I said at the top of this entry: not a bad day, just not as good a day as it would've been nice for this day to have been.

Anyone up for a late-night snack/ice-cream run if I can get my car off the snowbank again?

Mood:: 'exhausted' exhausted
There are 13 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
posted by [personal profile] redbird at 07:22pm on 2003-02-21
Have the ice cream. I don't think I can join you, but have ice cre, C and a not-quite-belated happy birthday.
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 08:06pm on 2003-02-21
Thanks.
 
posted by [identity profile] butterfluff.livejournal.com at 07:58pm on 2003-02-21
If you fly, I will buy. When was the birthday?
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 08:09pm on 2003-02-21
Birthday's today. That's why I was thinking a late-night outing.
 
posted by [identity profile] coginthenose.livejournal.com at 08:45pm on 2003-02-21
Happy birthday!!!! (from both of us)
I hope u get the ice cream.

How much snow did u all get? It seems like from the truama caused u must have gotten atleast 4 feet but I doubt you did?
Angie
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 09:06pm on 2003-02-21
Thanks. Looks like ice cream will be tomorrow, with Butterfluff.

I think the snow total was officially about two feet, though it stacked up funny in places 'cause it was coming sideways for a while, and some spots got more than the Official Measuring Spot did. On Tuesday, my car was covered almost to the tops of the tires, but we've had a lot of melting. Rooftops are still white, but a little black is showing at edges, for example. (A bunch of buildings in Baltimore have had roofs collapse, most notably the B&O railroad museum's wonderful dome, but also some houses (mostly abandoned ones I think), at least one office building, and a church that failed so spectacularly it'll need to be torn down and rebuilt, not just re-roofed.

What the plows piled up is going to take a long time to finish melting, of course. And last I heard, they're still plowing, trying to get side-streets open (when I drove around the block to get a fresh approach to the spot I rammed out tonight, one of the streets I went down was completely un-plowed and was as deep as my undercarriage). We don't have as many plows on hand down here as places that expect this much snow do, and the ones we have got Very Busy. This broke a century-old record for snowfall from a single storm.
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 09:09pm on 2003-02-21
BTW, it certainly felt like four feet, what with sidewalks still not being open most places, high berms made by the plows, and just how many things Shut Down. (Not quite half my side of my block has a cleared path on the sidewalk; the other half doesn't even have footprints.)
 
posted by [identity profile] coginthenose.livejournal.com at 09:51pm on 2003-02-21
hmm. I think up north they are more used to it.
it snowed 18inches awhile back. It stoped maybe around midnight. And by noon the next day things where pretty much back to normal. Though growing up down there I don not remember a plow shortage. But then again that was a long time ago and probly less effect from plow drifts where we lived.

On a related not we where driving into town the other day and saw them plowing the sidewalks. Which I had never seen before. It was this little cart with a little snow wedge on the front. It was very cute and very effective.

Angie
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 11:56pm on 2003-02-21
We don't usually have a snowplow shortage -- we have enough plows for normal-for-here amounts of snow. This fell too quickly for the plows to keep up.
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 09:49pm on 2003-02-21
Despite not having ice cream in the house (no, I didn't think to pick any up when I was at the grocery store earlier -- it was more a "want to go out with a friend" thing than wanting ice cream in particular, anyhow), I did find a way to give myself a little treat tonight. Dinner was (is) French toast with Turkish coffee. Fancy enough and rich enough to convince myself it feels like a treat; not fancy enough to actually be work to prepare; quick enough that I could think of it while already hungry and not decide it would take too long; and everything I needed was already in the kitchen.

Okay, now I can go to bed, as soon as I finish the coffee.
 
posted by [identity profile] butterfluff.livejournal.com at 12:26am on 2003-02-22
This might help. Take a look at http://butterfluff1066.tripod.com/snow/bigsnow.html It's subruban Baltimore.

The site is tripod, has lots of pop ups. Note that the pictures were taken Thursday afternoon, and most of the snow arrived Saturday.
cellio: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] cellio at 08:15pm on 2003-02-22
Happy birthday!
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 01:34am on 2003-03-01
Thanks! (Didn't see your comment until just now.)

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