Snow and Fun in New Jersey!
We did a total 180 from warm, beautiful late-spring weather to my Gods, where did the winter come from? I drove home on Wednesday afternoon with loud but wonderful music, the windows down and the sunroof open. With a normal, lightweight shirt on! It was delightful - so warm, so sunny, no humidity - that ruins the summer here, if the weather was dry life would be better! Anyway, it was a treat after snow, sleet and frigid temperatures to have a day that was actually in the 80s and beautiful outside.
On Thursday morning it was 62 F and okay - and by 1400 the temperature had dropped to the high 40s and was grey and ominously cloudy. When I got home, it was just starting to rain... little cold hard pellets hitting the windshield. When we headed out to our call at 2140, it was ice falling from the sky. That was it. We headed to Morristown Memorial and when we returned the ice was still falling. When I went to be around 2330, it was still pounding against the windows. When I finally gave up on trying to sleep around 0700, it was snowing hard and piling up fast. I had to run to Chilton to see Ma and first I went to Wayne to find Ray - I'd called him twice before and could not find him. So I went to the house (normally a 25 minute drive, it was a 40 minute odyssy of passing accidents - all single-vehicle spin out accidents) and the van wasn't there. I headed to the hospital from there and Ma was there but Ray wasn't. She had just returned from a test - she had a boatload of tests in two days. They have come to the happier conclusion that she was having focal siezures, not TIAs - a relief, I assure you. TIAs are usually precursors to a massive stroke. This is not that - siezures can be innocuous and caused by a multitude of things. So this is good news.
Ray, it turns out, went to his normal blood test and then physical therapy. He just went to his normal Friday stuff. He came to the hospital to meet me there with a couple of slices of pizza and we ate until they came to take Ma to her MRI test. We waited until 1300 and then the nurse said something about her having a second test... we looked at each other and immediately decided it was time to leave. So off we went, and it took 45 minutes to get home from the hospital, normally a 15 minute drive. Yikes. It was a huge effort to get up the driveway and into the garage. I know how to do it. I have to line up my car to be in a straight line to the garage door and then I have to drive at a fast, constant rate of speed up and into the garage door. I managed it (after three tries) and went into the house with the idea of not leaving, especially as it was still very actively snowing outside - big wet swirling flakes. It was quite amazing.
Luis came home and without me knowing a thing, he began blowing snow. This was around 1400... he was able to manage it for about an hour but then a newspaper got jammed into the blower and it ceased to work at all. He came in after only clearing about half of the driveway. It looked it might be manageable but then it began to rain ice pellets again.
Vicki called at that time and asked if I was available to come over so I said I'd come around ten. I was unsure of the weather but Vicki seemed confident that it would be over by 0200 and the roads should be fine. OK...
Well, the roads were not looking too good, but the driveway was far, far worse. It was covered up as though Luis had not touched it. It took me several tries to get out of the garage - but I did finally get out. I start to head to Vicki's house and the local roads hardly had any visible blacktop. Ominous. Route 287 had no fast lane. It was buried under slush and snow. A few brave souls went through the slush and one such moron threw all sorts of junk onto my windshield - scared the piss out of me. That whole no-visibility thing does not work for me when driving. I was not a happy camper.
I did finally get to Vicki's house and realised that their driveway was not done. At all - I couldn't park in it - I might be able to get in, but I would not manage to get out later. Hmmm. I was too far foward to park in front of the house - the road curves. I had to drive around the street again and park ahead of the house.
It was a delight to see and talk to Vicki and Stephen has really mellowed and become such a mature little boy! He is only three and a half, but he is a big boy - easily the size of a five-year old. It makes it easy for most to forget that he is not that mature - he is mentally right at the level of a three-and-a-half year old. He does have a longer attention span than other 3.5 year old kids. He was a bit of a monster when he hit the terrible twos and lived up to the full meaning of a terribly two year old kid. Not his fault - but certainly harder on Vicki, who originally wasn't really planning to be a parent. She has certainly learned a lot and came a long way from the exhausted parent she became when she first had him. He was a delight this time around. He is a very cute little boy.
So we hung out from 1000 until 1500, and then I left to get home. The roads had thawed and a lot of the roads were completely clear. I was relieved. The drive home was much easier. And driving later that night - well, I get ahead of myself.
I ended up parking in the squad parking lot - the driveway was a disaster. We had not managed to clean out the newpaper from the spinning parts, and so that was that. I figured trying the impossible would not be worth it. It wasn't.
On Thursday morning it was 62 F and okay - and by 1400 the temperature had dropped to the high 40s and was grey and ominously cloudy. When I got home, it was just starting to rain... little cold hard pellets hitting the windshield. When we headed out to our call at 2140, it was ice falling from the sky. That was it. We headed to Morristown Memorial and when we returned the ice was still falling. When I went to be around 2330, it was still pounding against the windows. When I finally gave up on trying to sleep around 0700, it was snowing hard and piling up fast. I had to run to Chilton to see Ma and first I went to Wayne to find Ray - I'd called him twice before and could not find him. So I went to the house (normally a 25 minute drive, it was a 40 minute odyssy of passing accidents - all single-vehicle spin out accidents) and the van wasn't there. I headed to the hospital from there and Ma was there but Ray wasn't. She had just returned from a test - she had a boatload of tests in two days. They have come to the happier conclusion that she was having focal siezures, not TIAs - a relief, I assure you. TIAs are usually precursors to a massive stroke. This is not that - siezures can be innocuous and caused by a multitude of things. So this is good news.
Ray, it turns out, went to his normal blood test and then physical therapy. He just went to his normal Friday stuff. He came to the hospital to meet me there with a couple of slices of pizza and we ate until they came to take Ma to her MRI test. We waited until 1300 and then the nurse said something about her having a second test... we looked at each other and immediately decided it was time to leave. So off we went, and it took 45 minutes to get home from the hospital, normally a 15 minute drive. Yikes. It was a huge effort to get up the driveway and into the garage. I know how to do it. I have to line up my car to be in a straight line to the garage door and then I have to drive at a fast, constant rate of speed up and into the garage door. I managed it (after three tries) and went into the house with the idea of not leaving, especially as it was still very actively snowing outside - big wet swirling flakes. It was quite amazing.
Luis came home and without me knowing a thing, he began blowing snow. This was around 1400... he was able to manage it for about an hour but then a newspaper got jammed into the blower and it ceased to work at all. He came in after only clearing about half of the driveway. It looked it might be manageable but then it began to rain ice pellets again.
Vicki called at that time and asked if I was available to come over so I said I'd come around ten. I was unsure of the weather but Vicki seemed confident that it would be over by 0200 and the roads should be fine. OK...
Well, the roads were not looking too good, but the driveway was far, far worse. It was covered up as though Luis had not touched it. It took me several tries to get out of the garage - but I did finally get out. I start to head to Vicki's house and the local roads hardly had any visible blacktop. Ominous. Route 287 had no fast lane. It was buried under slush and snow. A few brave souls went through the slush and one such moron threw all sorts of junk onto my windshield - scared the piss out of me. That whole no-visibility thing does not work for me when driving. I was not a happy camper.
I did finally get to Vicki's house and realised that their driveway was not done. At all - I couldn't park in it - I might be able to get in, but I would not manage to get out later. Hmmm. I was too far foward to park in front of the house - the road curves. I had to drive around the street again and park ahead of the house.
It was a delight to see and talk to Vicki and Stephen has really mellowed and become such a mature little boy! He is only three and a half, but he is a big boy - easily the size of a five-year old. It makes it easy for most to forget that he is not that mature - he is mentally right at the level of a three-and-a-half year old. He does have a longer attention span than other 3.5 year old kids. He was a bit of a monster when he hit the terrible twos and lived up to the full meaning of a terribly two year old kid. Not his fault - but certainly harder on Vicki, who originally wasn't really planning to be a parent. She has certainly learned a lot and came a long way from the exhausted parent she became when she first had him. He was a delight this time around. He is a very cute little boy.
So we hung out from 1000 until 1500, and then I left to get home. The roads had thawed and a lot of the roads were completely clear. I was relieved. The drive home was much easier. And driving later that night - well, I get ahead of myself.
I ended up parking in the squad parking lot - the driveway was a disaster. We had not managed to clean out the newpaper from the spinning parts, and so that was that. I figured trying the impossible would not be worth it. It wasn't.
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