Here in My Car...

On this snow day, I was reminded of three things: 1) how lucky I am to have such a good teammate in life (a.k.a., L), 2) how white I am, and 3) how horrible L is at working from home.  I mean he was not meant for a job that requires him to do that daily.

If you haven't heard, DC got hit by a snowstorm yesterday afternoon, right around the time rush hour started.  I'd planned to leave work at 3:00, but the weather looked like it might hold out a bit longer so I opted to stay for my daily 4:00 conference call with a west-coast co-worker.  That was a mistake.  L called around 3:40 to say he was thinking about leaving around 4:00, and after some debate, we decided he'd come pick me up on his way home and we'd ride back to the house together, and that he'd leave his office immediately instead of waiting 15 minutes.  An hour later, he called to tell me he'd made it to the street my office is on to let me know he was getting close, so I high-tailed it to the lobby and ended up waiting about 2 hours for him to go roughly 3 blocks to get to my building.  While I waited, I composed the following email on my phone and sent it to several friends, hoping that they'd respond and keep me entertained.

Subject: Entertain me, por favor

So, I'm chilling in the lobby of my office building, waiting on L to get here to pick me up. It's snowing ridiculously hard outside and I'm the fool who opted to wait til the snow started to even think about going home... Anyway, my office looks out on one of the drives leading into 2 different garages (jealous of such an exotic view???) and the traffic to just get out of the garages is INSANE. So I decided to carpool home w/ L b/c who wants to drive in this? Not me. The security guard hanging out w/ me right now told me he's been monitoring the traffic of the garage where my car is parked and people haven't moved in an hour. I'm going to say he might be exaggerating a little, but then L called me at 4:45 my time to tell me he was on my street a few blocks away and he's still not here. I'm definitely bundled up and ready to go as soon as he calls to tell me he's here though. For your mental picture, I'm wearing my grey pin stripe suit (the one that matches L's, and luckily I opted for pants today or the rest of my ensemble would look extra attractive), a teal top that you currently can't see, my suit jacket (also hidden right now), my green pea coat, gray knit scarf and hat, blue and white striped knit gloves, and my tan snow boots, which means I'm carrying my tall black boots around. I also have my purse, an over flowing black and white purse-style lunch box, and a book. All I can say is that I'm a hobo-chic color explosion.

So reply back and tell me what's going on this week! I got nothin' but time. Or feel free to call if you're done w/ work. I'll be around!!

Luckily AMVS and SRGR both came to the rescue with phone calls and The Roommate and H pulled through with emails back, so that helped immensely.  My sister also called during our plight home, so that also helped pass our time while we were stuck in one spot for a long stretch.  Anyway, I ran out to L's truck around 6:15-ish and we continued to inch forward on my office's street for about an hour, then the same thing with the street after that, etc., etc.  We got to the house around 10:45 (so, roughly 4 1/2 hours for me and 7 for L... and if you're looking for distance, my office is about 7 miles from our house), which pales in comparison to several of my co-workers who had 9+ hour drives home and were in their cars by themselves.  That's the key to our sanities- we were together.  It wasn't scary being in the traffic because no one was moving, but when you did move, it was super slow.  I drove about 95% of the way home so that L could hop out and push us when we got stuck and help other people around us when they got stuck.  He ended up wearing my snow boots because he only had his dress shoes with him and our feet are almost the same size, plus the boots are a little roomy on me.  Also, they are very gender-neutral, so it's not like anyone could tell they were women's shoes, but even if they could have, who would've cared??  This is the one pictuer I got the whole night because I didn't have my camera with me and L refused to take pictures with my phone while I was driving, and I wasn't about to start snapping away while I was behind the wheel of his truck.

That was our view for about an hour and a half, except more cars came along and packed in the empty lanes to our right.  Anyway, once we got home, we had to park the truck in front of a random neighbor's house at the end of the street because the truck couldn't make it up the gentle hill that is our street.  The street hadn't been plowed and there was just too much snow on the ground to get any traction.  That meant hiking it through the snow up to the house in my high-heeled boots- not something I'd recommend!  Also, if you go out in the snow, wear more than just suit pants.  Not the warmest.  Then, just as we were drifting off to sleep around 12:45, the power went out.  SO, obviously a snow day was in order after all that!

Luckily, the power came back around 8:45 this morning and it's been smooth sailing ever since.  L slept in til noon- exhausted from running through snowy streets and pushing cars around all night, as well as building a snow dam around the truck since our parking job at the end of the night was not the best- and then started working from home.  Which brings us to a funny story.  That man is great and is great at many things, but focusing on work while at home is just not one of them.  A couple of weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon, he decided to run to Target for something specific, although I don't remember what it was now, so obviously it was very important.  I asked him to pick me up some yoga pants that were on sale (success!) and he also brought me home a hibiscus bulb and kit (cute and random and thoughtful because he knows I love flowers).  Anyway, I thought that was about it.  He called me the next day and told me he was going to go home from work early so that he could do some voice recordings for a work project (he has to do this from time to time and our house has better acoustics than his office).  I came home to find him set up at the dining room table, laptop open, microphone hooked up, but instead of working, he was watching episodes of some show called The League.  Apparently we own season one of this show now, which is purely the product of The Gamblor incessantly raving about this show.  L had never watched a full episode (he didn't like the parts he'd seen), so obviously instead of using Netflix to watch the show and determine if he liked it, we needed to become the proud owners of said show.  Today was pretty similar, only he kept one eye on whatever was on HBO.  He also stopped to come help me shovel out spaces for us to park our cars, although I'm proud to say I did about 90% of the clearing.  Go me!  That never would have happened last year.  It was hard, and it wasn't fun, but it was my workout for the day, so in that regard, I enjoyed it.  My arms and upper back will be ripped in no time.  Also I'm pretty sure my face is sunburned, which is weird, because the sun wasn't out, but I guess it's just like when you go snow skiing. 

I also realized today that my skin is currently pretty darn close to the color of the snow outside.  I definitely Tan Toweled it up after my post-snow shoveling shower this afternoon, so hopefully that will help give me some much-needed color. 

I'm looking forward to going back in to work in the morning.  I don't love that I have a day of work before my weekend can really start, but I'm glad the worst of the snow is over and I'm ready to feel productive again.  But now, it's time for a low-key Date Night In so that we can gear up for work (and more snow) tomorrow morning!  Hope everyone is having a good week and staying warm!