baby, it's cold outside

It was -17 F when I got up this morning. That's beyond the threshold at which point any lower temperature can be classified as Just Plain Stupid Cold. I've been self-medicating with peppermint mochas the past two days. Tomorrow, we'll have a heat wave of 22 degrees!

We had the happiest sight ever this morning upon disembarking from the train: our Public Safety office, which usually sends an officer out to drive people to campus (5 at most can fit in the car), sent BOTH of the department SUVs to pick us up! My favorite officer, C, talked her boss into it. We were so appreciative. They're really good to us. I made them cookies at the end of last semester as a Thank You for things like this that they do for us.

Aside from the cold, the first week of classes has been going just fine. I've had walk-in hours everyday for my students with disabilities, which makes things MUCH less of a scheduling nightmare at the beginning of the semester. In addition to those kids, some of the usual suspects have dropped in to say hello. I was ready for the kids to be back.

I've got to try and find a little time, perhaps at the end of the day, to finish watching the BSG webisodes--we're back with an all-new ep tonight! First of the final ten! OMG! H and one of A's friends are coming over to watch it with us. I can't believe we'll soon know who all the cylons are.

I've got a ton of knit/crochet projects I want to work on. I want to dye more yarn--I need to post my pics of the 3 skeins I've already dyed. I'm finishing up a sweater and working on a scarf. I have some mittens in the work, though the need for those has diminished this week with the arrival of fleece mittens from a friend of A's family. I also saw yesterday that people have been making felted iPod cases. Great idea. If only yarn could be my full-time job... A girl can dream. :)

winter failures

I slipped and fell twice yesterday morning--on the way to the train and on the way from the train to campus. Today, I'd barely made it past our front yard when I wiped out again. I'm so over this.

After hitting the ground nice and hard on the way to the College yesterday, I was not the least bit amused by the stellar (not!) snow removal, which is done by an outside contractor. The "weather event" had long since been over with, and yet the campus with a mess. Are we really getting our money's worth here, kids?

Thank goodness my students with mobility impairments aren't back on campus yet (classes begin next Tuesday):



And you'll love this one:



I'm fairly certain salt works better with snow and ice when you actually spread it around and don't just leave it in piles on the sidewalk.

Friday morning can bite me... Oh, wait! It already did.

It was a sign when Piper threw up on my spring jacket last night. Winter's not yet gone, and I need to accept that. Each time I glance out of my office window, I see more snow has accumulated.

In addition to beginning my day with fresh white stuff falling all around me, I opened an extremely presumptuous email from a professor while eating my cereal this morning, freshly showered and still in my pjs. I read it, got pissed, closed it, and marked it "unread." Some faculty (a dwindling number of them) just aren't good at respecting staff as equal peers, but I'm nobody's bitch or subordinate. One of the lessons that has thankfully come with age is the lesson that you don't reply to an email when it's just pissed you off. Rather, you can reply while the pissiness is still ripe--that's fair--but a little distance is a good thing. And then, you CC your boss on the reply to said presumptuous email.

The smug satisfaction of being right in my reply certainly lessens my woe about the snow. This Friday could be okay after all.

I'm doubtful, which means I'll end up eating these words.

According to the National Weather Service, for our area:

...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM FRIDAY TO 1 AM CDT SATURDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN CHICAGO HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM FRIDAY TO 1 AM CDT SATURDAY. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

SNOW IS EXPECTED TO OVERSPREAD THE AREA AFTER MIDNIGHT TONIGHT AND CONTINUE THROUGH THE DAY FRIDAY BEFORE DIMINISHING EARLY FRIDAY EVENING. TOTAL SNOWFALL ACCUMULATION OF UP TO 8 INCHES IS EXPECTED OVER MUCH OF THE WARNING AREA. THERE WILL BE A VERY SHARP DIVISION BETWEEN THE HEAVY SNOW AREA AND A NARROW BAND OF MIXED PRECIPITATION BEFORE CHANGING OVER TO ALL RAIN OVER LOCATIONS SOUTH OF THE ILLINOIS AND KANKAKEE RIVERS.

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW... SLEET... AND ICE ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. TRAVEL WILL LIKELY BE VERY HAZARDOUS. THIS WILL ALSO BE A VERY WET...HEAVY SNOW. EXERCISE CAUTION WHEN SHOVELING.

Except the national radar map is pretty much empty right now. I know that's still 12 hours away, but I can't help but feel like we ought to see something on the map. Shouldn't someone be getting pounded by that weather right now?

And our current weather? Mid-40's and sunny. Yeah, baby.

(I'm bringing my boots home with me, just in case.)

it really is time for a weather warm-up

Crocheting is more of a winter activity. I regret that, but I just can't get into it in the warmest months of the year. There's just something about making winter hats in summer that doesn't work for me.

Anne may or may not have shared with you her amusement with my crocheting a uterus. I'm doing it for my students who are organizing a production of The Vagina Monologues--a vagina wouldn't be that interesting in crochet. Well, it's been stalled, mostly because the pattern has been on the computer and not printed out. I keep thinking, though, that I need to finish it.

And so, I dreamed about it. But, it wasn't just any fiber uterus. It was a giant black worsted-weight knitted uterus, sans fallopian tubes, and a woman was inside of it, with only her head sticking out of the top. It wasn't stuffed--she had room to wiggle around in there. It was sewn closed around her neck, like a turtleneck sweater.

Clearly, this project is messing with me.

wanted: rock salt for streets and sidewalks

Lovely news, folks: Northern Illinois is low on its rock salt. This includes The College and This College Town. Given the 12 inches* of snow we got up here yesterday, this is somewhat of a problem. I've seen cars spin their wheels, trying to move through intersections on roads covered with what must be an inch of snowy compacted ice. I think our women's hockey team should move tomorrow's game outside for the fun of skating around the roads. Street hockey's run, right? So what if it's not an NCAA sport! I must admit that I do worry about how my students with mobility disabilities will fare getting around campus, given that our small reserve of snow is supposedly saved for the drives** around campus. My 2 kids' paths to/from class are supposed to be a shoveling and salting priority.

In college, I had serious loathing for February. Despite it being the shortest month, it always felt like February existed in the depths of despair and hopelessness, with no end of reprieve in sight. If my friend Heather is right, we've had only 11 minutes of actual sunlight here in the month of February. I'm self-medicating with chocolate.

____________________________
* Anne rightfully challenges my estimations of snowfall, given I have little to no depth perception. Today, however, this was confirmed by my friend Jennifer as we walked to campus from the train. So there, Anne! :P

** Pfff. The drive into the parking lot of the Butch--my building--was like any other thoroughfare in This College Town this morning.

Comedy of Errors

I think I'm going to start a series of posts (not a regularly scheduled series) that I'm calling "Comedy of Errors." They're going to be the stories that are so stupid and hilarious and... yeah... the kind of stuff you can't make up. Inspired by this morning...

I have a potluck today for the book group I'm part of here at work. I made Jandyle's salsa dip, which involves a mixture of cream cheese and sour cream setting overnight in a small casserole dish (you put salsa, which I drained last night, and cheese on top right before serving). I bagged up the cold things in one grocery bag, with my Fritos in another bag. I made coffee for the first time in about 2 weeks (it's not fun when you're sick), and I chose my screw-top coffee mug from Starbucks--a gift from Maddy when she spilled one of my non-screw-top mugs off the counter and spilled coffee ALL over the kitchen. I packed up and headed out a little later than I wanted. It was the average time for leaving when conditions are fine out, but I've been trying to leave about 5 or 10 minutes earlier to allow for icy sidewalks.

Our front porch was newly painted in early autumn, so I'm always nervous that it could be very slick. I took my first step out, and it was only wet. Joy! I headed down the steps to the sidewalk and the gate. I made it almost out of the yard when I hit black ice. I didn't go completely down, but I dropped everything I was carrying: bag of Fritos, bag of cold stuff for the dip, cup of coffee.

I was most concerned about the glass casserole dish breaking, so I went immediately to check that first. All glass was in check, but that's when I noticed that the coffee mug had come up. There was coffee all over the sidewalk (perhaps good for the ice problem) and all over--and inside--the bag of cold stuff. The handle of the bag was particularly wet and sickeningly sweet with my coffee. Needless to say, I was a little more careful on the rest of the walk, which made me nervous for my timing for the train.

I wiped things down as best I could as with the few kleenexes I had in my coat pocket, at which point all I could do was hope my sinus infection would behave itself until I got to work. I headed around the corner and down the block to the intersection where I can catch the northbound bus to one train stop or the southbound bus 1/3 of a mile to the street my usual train stop is on. No northbound was in sight, but a good number of people were milling across the street at the southbound bus stop, which I take to mean there's got to be one not far off--it's rush hour, after all. I opted to wait with them, and a bus came relatively quickly. It was packed.

I made my way out at my stop, and I headed across the street to catch the westbound bus to the Metra. That bus runs more regularly than the one I'd just gotten off, so I wasn't worried about catching one in time. (When you take a train that only runs once an hour, this is usually faulty logic.) I'd waited about five minutes when I saw a northbound bus stopped across the street at a red light. Decision time: flag down the northbound and hope it'll wait for me to cross on the green to head north to the next Metra stop, or continue to wait for my bus. I opted to wait.

After another five minutes (cue nervousness), the bus arrived, also packed. I headed back to stand by the exit door. Approaching my stop, the girl seated across from me pulled the string and got out to stand with me. The bus driver flew right past our stop. "Wait!" I called. She stopped at the next bus stop down, where the girl and I, both grumbling, exited the bus. Between that intersection and my side of the train platform, there's no stoplight for the busy street. And, I knew I was running out of time.

As I walked back east, I watched the light ahead of me for the red, at which point I took my life into my own hands and jaywalked over to the platform.

Thank gawd I did. The train pulled in when I was halfway across the street. And, this asthmatic doesn't run. I hustled up and into the first open car I approached then walked back to my usual car, where the conductor knows me and my monthly pass, so he never checks it.

I rinsed my hands with my water bottle, chugged what little coffee was left, and got out my crochet. The train ride was luckily uneventful.

When I got into the office, I did a good inspection of all of the containers in the contaminated bag--all were intact. I dug out the tub of Clorox wipes and wiped down everything, including my coffee mug, which I noticed was cracked on the outside (that should make for an interesting washing, with water likely to collect inside the outer shell). Clean containers safely in my baby fridge, I proceeded down the hall to wash my hands, walking right into our onesie bathroom... and in on somebody who'd forgotten to lock the door.

I'm rather afraid of what the rest of the day could bring. And you know, I had thought last night, "You know, there's nothing pressing in the morning, and it's a Reading Day for the kids, so I could just sleep an extra hour and take the train that'll get me into the office at 10." If I'd listened to the part of me that really wanted that extra hour of sleep, the sidewalks could have been melted enough to make for an easy trip to the train, although I would have missed the opportunity for the campus shuttle to campus, which probably would have meant me slipping and falling with all the stuff once I got into town here. I don't think I could win either way, but at least I could have had an extra hour of sleep.