Wednesday, February 21, 2018

bad weather time

So. It rained heavily all day yesterday. So much so, I decided not to pick up the prescription refill (one of my antihistamines - I still have a couple days' worth) or go to Pruett's. Cold, unrelenting, nasty rain. I took stuff out to the trash and got soaked. I got soaked checking the mail.

It turned colder over the evening. I kept checking the list of closings, hopeful. (A lot of my students have long commutes, and it's a pain dealing with "I couldn't get in safely, can you please review everything in office hours?" requests, and honestly? You'd think TPTB would remember the people with long commutes).

They warned about bridges and overpasses. Folks who live in Ardmore or Sherman don't have any choice but to brave at least one bridge to get here.

And gradually, the school closings rolled in: many of the districts near here. Not the local district, but they seem to never close for anything (Perhaps they already have too many days off in the schedule?).

I finally went to bed, figuring maybe they'd decide overnight if it got bad.

Woke up at 5 am (today is technically a rest day for exercise, but I half-promised that if campus was closed, I'd do it later in the day). Called the number. Nope: "Drive safely!" oh yes, forget you very much, recording.

So I thought: well, maybe the person whose job it is to decide wasn't up overnight so I watched the local news. Nope. I decided when the local district bus drivers had reported to the bus barn (some of the buses run as early as 7 am, so I figured 6:15 was the latest) and those schools were still open, we would be open.

I did wait a bit later than I ordinarily would to drive in, so I could see better. And I took a different route: Wilson, which I normally take, has poor visibility (wooded, and also twists and turns) and people drive too fast on it. But most of all: it floods when we get a lot of rain. So I drove in the "back" way, which is a lot longer. Drove through some nearly flooded roads (Yes, I know, I know: "Turn around, don't drown" but when you HAVE to get to work and there are NO roads that don't have water going across them, you just gun it and pray). Some smallish branches down and a lot of trees and shrubs are bending low under a load of ice.

Oh, and my trash can. I put it down in the cold rain around 4 pm last night. It got tipped over during the night (or some jerk came by and tipped it over, we sometimes have people who do that, though I would hope someone wouldn't venture out into near-freezing rain just to be a pain to their neighbors). So I had to pick it up. But right then my hands were full with my purse, my lunch kit, and a stack of exams I had graded last night.

(An aside: there was talk on Twitter the other day about the newest Doctor on Dr. Who (the first woman Doctor) and jokes about whether her clothing would have pockets, because a notorious thing about women's clothing is either shallow useless pockets or lack of pockets altogether, and I commented "Don't make the Doctor carry a frigging purse, you can't save the world if you're worrying about lugging around a purse" and I stand by that)

So I got my car out, so I could put my lunch and purse and the tests (which were rapidly becoming wet in the rain) in it. And then got back out, hauled the trash can up (They are hard for me to lift and I am NOT a weak woman; I work out. I wonder what someone much smaller or frailer than I would do). And then I picked the couple of items that had spilled out into the street- and were soaked and ice-coated - up, and put them back in the can.

($5 says that when I come home, either they won't have been through to pick up the trash on the grounds it's "too icy," or else my trash can will be lying in the street on its side and I'll have to haul it up AGAIN to put it away).

Drove over here. Looked worriedly at the bending trees and noticed a few branches down in the street. Also, the power lines are icy and I really hope none of them snap; a live line going down into a large puddle would be very, very bad. (And I hope if we lose power the decision is made to close campus. You'd THINK it would, but once before, the statement "Can't the professors teach without electricity" was made)

I parked in a different (more distant) spot, because I quickly calculated the most-likely trajectory for a large branch off the tree I normally park under to fall, and decided I'd rather walk farther in than risk a damaged windshield.

My big worries now are: (a) Power lines will break and it will be difficult for people to get home safely because of live wires down. (Though mercifully, there seems to be no wind) or (b) it will get so much worse it will be unsafe for me to drive home this afternoon (I did pack a few more bits of food in my lunch, and have a blanket in my office, but will be exceptionally unhappy if I wind up having to try to sleep on my office floor) or (c) my car will wind up a block of ice (No, I didn't think to bring a scraper in to my office with me. If c happens, I will call campus police and ask for an assist, or else see if there's some piece of lab equipment I can use to get the ice off).

But yeah. I anticipate having smaller classes than normal today. So far no one has called or e-mailed me but that may be coming. (Already I have a couple people absent from lab for some kind of university thing they have to be at).

I could have done with just a day at home, and missing a day of classes here would not have mattered; I am keeping up with the syllabus in the one I have today fine.

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