Snow Day

That was a fun little snowstorm, huh? We haven't had a serious one like that for a while. A friend who works at BU called around noon to tell me they were being sent home at 1 PM. I thought, we should get to go home too. We did, but it was strange that the email telling us we could leave at 1 didn't arrive until 1:10.

I ended up staying at work for about another hour after that, just because I wanted to get some more work done, and I figured the hour wouldn't make much difference. In hindsight, I wish I had left earlier, but everything was so screwed up all afternoon that I don't know if it would have mattered. A trip that usually takes about an hour took two and a half hours, but a lot of people had it much worse than I did. I had the bad timing to be on an E train that all the Boston Latin kids tried to get on at once, so it was a packed ride all the way to North Station.

When I got to Wellington, I waited almost an hour for a bus. We were told that all the bus routes were running, just not on time, but no bus for my route ever showed up in the station. Instead, an empty, sitting bus was designated to make the run on my route, so I feel pretty fortunate there was a bus and a driver available. The bus trip usually takes about ten minutes, but it took 30, because everything on the Fellsway was just crawling; I suspect the road hadn't been plowed yet, but it was difficult to tell because all the windows were fogged over.

And of course, once I finally did make it home, the dog needed to be taken out; her need to relieve herself doesn't stop just because it's snowing outside. In fact, for a dog that's kind of a wuss, she loves the snow, and wanted more than anything to romp in it. I did my best to indulge her, then spent about two hours shoveling, then went back out around 10:15 for another 45 minutes, to remove the last inch or so that had fallen since the first round. (The landlord pays us to shovel, so we make an effort to do a good job.)

I learned that, while my waterproof and insulated boots are indeed waterproof, the insulation is inadequate for standing around outside for extended periods when it's in the vicinity of 22 degrees, and, when wading through snow with a wound-up greyhound, it might be nice to have something a couple of inches higher. So it's time to find some serious winter boots.