Thursday, February 11, 2010

Tales From the Trenches

We're into day 7 of the big snow. Our mayor whom I refer to as Opie has finally figured out how to deal with snow. Opie was president of city council when our real mayor passed away. No one really cares who's mayor of Pittsburgh except when something goes wrong. Opie is this young dumb guy that they made president of city council when they couldn't agree on a real person to do it. So Opie was just standing there and the mayor thing fell on him. The sad part is that the citizens of the burgh recently reelected him because -- let's say it together -- nobody cares who is mayor of Pittsburgh.

But I digress. Anyway, Opie finally got all the roads cleared but my suburban school district is still suffering with downed power lines and broken water mains. So I have no school tomorrow. A full week off is great, but we will pay for it next week when all the little ones come back wound up like tops. It will be like the first week of school all over again. It's a good thing they're cute. My beloved and I went out today to run errands, mail bills and go to the gym. We were scheduled to drive to DC to see my daughter at college this weekend. Beloved was revved to go because he will drive in anything, but I chickened out so we called and moved our hotel reservations. HRH was disappointed but bounced back when we said we will reschedule for two weeks from now. So for now it's more books, more food and maybe a nice dinner for Valentine's day. Life is good.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Snow days

I have been snowed in since last Friday evening. I left school around 2:00 and made my way home after stopping for a few supplies. I got in just ahead of the storm. Pittsburgh is a northern city but apparently our city fathers are in denial about that. We are never fully prepared for snow and a blizzard of this magnitude pretty much shuts us down. The suburban school district where I teach but do not live suffered major power outages and water main breaks which have yet to be repaired as the snow continues to come down.

My husband dug us out and we had a couple of opportunities to go out between snows to get essentials: books, food, books. The beautiful northern magnolia in our front yard lost several large branches and was responsible for the loss of cable service. I mourn the tree more than the television. I hope an arborist can save it. Meanwhile I am discovering something disturbing about myself. I do not want to leave my house. I am enjoying just puttering around fixing things, cleaning, cooking huge pots of soup, baking bread, inviting the next door neighbors over for waffles. It's fine with me if I only get out twice in 5 days. This is scary. I always thought of myself as more social than this. My husband is the perfect companion as he is quiet and likes to read even more than I do. He eats what I cook, helps me work on things, and thinks my company is just fine. We got out one day to go to the gym and a movie, and then yesterday I bought an exercise DVD to keep myself going. I spent yesterday afternoon at the book store spending my birthday money which had been burning a hole in my pocket. I already had a stack of books from the library and from paperback swap. I could last at least another week. Food is not a problem as I have stores of ingredients and shelves of cookbooks.

I'm not sure what this says about me, but I have decided to enjoy my solitude and wait for the thaw.