Realms of the Raven

I’m really not used to protracted cold weather in Western Washington and the last month or so has been nothing but consistently odd and inconsistently COLD. Last week it took me three hours to make a normally 30-45 minute drive home and I left work early, long before everyone else panicked. It’s been between 25 and 31 since - that’s three days that I’ve just stayed home. My blog has more details on the scary drive home and the crazy slip-and-slide of my attempt to leave the house yesterday.

Of course the enforced homebound-ness would be more appreciated if it were not in the company of a five year old who really wants to play and a husband who really wants to talk to me.

On the good side, I came up with a really interesting story idea that the Muses have created from my annoyance with the weather and my fascination with storms, especially lightning storms. If I manage to complete the test reading I’m working on today, I will try to post the short start of that idea.

With all the weird stuff going on with the weather, I worked from home yesterday. I really wasn’t comfortable with how slippery the driveway and local roads are. C took M to daycare and picked him up (something about him being far more comfortable driving on slick roads than I am).

Today I caved to C’s plans of leaving for work Way Early (before daycare was opened) and planned on taking M to daycare myself. I had hoped that when C actually didn’t get up until I woke him up (after daycare was open), he would volunteer to take M anyway. No such luck.

So I decide that I’m still not going in to my office but would take M to daycare - that way I could actually get work done. It couldn’t be too bad, after all. C had assured my that I would have been fine yesterday and would be today too.

I cry Bullshit.

It’s 31 in the garage when I leave (after this tale is over I moved the thermometer to the back patio and it registered 26).

M and I (mostly I) spent 15 minutes scraping about 1/4 inch of ice from the my car. Mind you this is ICE, not snow. Then it took another minute or two to try to pry open the car doors that have managed to freeze themselves shut. Joy.

The next step was to try to get out of the driveway. The car was stuck but a few cycles of rocking back and forth managed to escape that. Down the driveway was a little slick, as was the private gravel road. The intersection between it and the first paved road was quite slick but I managed it.

Because I had to take an uphill right next to our road, I went the opposite way about a block, made a careful u-turn and made a run for the hill. Now I wasn’t going all that fast because I was trying to walk the fine line between the desire for momentum and not creaming myself, oncoming traffic or anything else if something went wrong. I had gotten a look at the hill and it looked a lot like packed ice to me.

Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill……

About half the way up the tune changed to….

Sliding down the hill, down the hill, down the hill…..

At the bottom I had zero traction and was making a marvelous backward pirouette until I had done about a 180 and was about a foot from being in the ditch.

A few deep breaths and I told M that we were just going to go home now. It was just too slick for me. He never panicked (neither did I) but it was a bit adrenaline raising.

I called daycare to let them know M wasn’t coming today. Then I called C and let him have it.

New rules:
1) If I say I’m not comfortable driving with the current road conditions, do not argue with me. Your comfort level is NOT mine and I do not have nearly the same degree of experience you do.
2) If I ask you to take M to daycare because of road conditions, please just do it if at all possible. I don’t make you mortgage a body part when you ask me to ferry in your place - please exercise the same courtesy.
3) Next car I get must have all wheel drive and I always get mud/snow rated tires.

Sigh - if it’s not better tomorrow, I’m going to have cabin fever. It’s 7:45 pm now and 25 degrees outside. Not looking much like thawing.