vortex schmortex

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I left work early today because we were getting lake effect snow. It actually started around 9am, which means I missed it entirely on my way in. My coworker commutes from a fair distance away, so I texted him and cautioned him about it. He didn’t know what I was talking about because it hadn’t hit him yet– lake effect bands are unpredictable and tend to have sharp edges, so a distance of a few miles makes the difference between whiteout and sunny day. 

He decided we should go home early today, and he prepared to not come in tomorrow, but I kind of threw myself on my sword and volunteered to come in. Because really… 1) I don’t get paid if I don’t go in, and 2) I live a mile and a half away, there is basically no weather so bad I wouldn’t be able to get there given zero time constraints. I just have to be there long enough to make sure some buttons get pressed, process some things, and package some things to mail out, at some point between 9 am and 7 pm. 

I shoveled about eight inches of snow off the driveway when I got home (and a fucking glacier off the end of the driveway where the plow had left us a souvenir, as always), and we’ve had another couple of inches since then. We’ll see what I wake up to.

But it wasn’t that cold today. It only got down to maybe 21. My coworker insisted on driving me home, and I didn’t protest, because walking in fresh snow is exhausting, but I wasn’t worried about the cold.

Tomorrow maybe I will be, but. Again: it’s 1.4 miles, the wind isn’t that bad, and I have very good cold weather gear; normally I’ve sweated through two or three layers by the time I get to work, and I bring clothes to change into. I have very good boots and I know what I’m about.

There are supposed to be 45mph winds tomorrow so maybe I won’t want to walk in that, but it might be safer to walk than to drive if the roads are bad. I’ll see how it looks. And I don’t have to get there right at 9, so. 
We’ll see.

Hope everyone else is staying warm enough and doing all right. <3
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missbuster replied to your post “vortex

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missbuster replied to your post “vortex schmortex”

I’m living in the country this winter and I just ordered snowshoes for walking the dogs. I don’t have the in-town adventures you have but we do share the same weather bubble quite often so

ms-daphne replied to your post “vortex schmortex”

@missbuster snowshoes are THE BEST THING. Global warming has given my place 4 months of rain followed by 2 months of sleet and I miss actual snow so much. It’s so quiet when it snows.

[my [B’s] response, which I’m bracketing so the buggy crossposter can figure out who’s talking]: Yeah I wish I had some, I grew up using snowshoes sometimes, and actually Farmsister had some she used to walk to class in Cornell (at one point in her undergrad career she slipped on the ice in those fucking gorges so badly her femur broke her tibia, so that was pretty fucking intense). Normally, I’m on sidewalks, so there’s no point to snowshoes and they’d actually just get in the way. 

My mom tried to give me her YakTrax when I was visiting a couple of weeks ago, which are those metal mesh studs you pull on over your shoes for better grip, but I turned them down because even icy concrete is really mostly concrete, and I just feel like I’d wear the trax out fast because the ice isn’t thick or omnipresent enough. Mom uses hers to walk three miles from home to her office in the town hall. 

But man. I said I’d get in there today, and it’s.. well, it’s 4 now, and it’ll drop to 0 in the next couple hours, and it’s coming down hard, we’ve had about a foot, and it’s going to continue until 1pm.

With the snow, I feel like it’d be easier to walk than to try to free my car. (The plows haven’t been down my road since yesterday, and clearly, school is canceled, there’s no traffic, so who knows what kind of snow removal we’re gonna get today.) But with the cold, and the fact that literally nobody is going to have plowed, it’s likely to be an exhausting walk.

However! It being an exhausting walk means I sure won’t be too cold. As long as I’ve got no exposed skin, I’m likely to be safe enough. 

I just have to get there, and I only have a couple of hours of work to do. 

*sigh* I wish my bosses gave hazard pay. But, better this than the old location, where it was seven miles each way and the official policy was that we’d close if there was a driving ban but in practice that meant that employees often were expected to be there until the ban was enacted, and then were unable to leave. (That was the old boss; he literally made a guy sleep over in the store rather than letting him leave safely. To man a retail store! to which customers couldn’t come! because it wasn’t safe! it was fucking stupid. I hope the kid stayed clocked in all night.)

Anyhow this is me: I’m right in the middle between where it says “Buffalo” and “Tonawanda”, and I gotta walk through that beautiful gif at some point. Sigh. 
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ok so a travel advisory is in place for all of the city of buffalo, town of tonawanda, city of...

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ok so a travel advisory is in place for all of the city of buffalo, town of tonawanda, city of tonawanda, town of amherst etc., which certainly encompasses me, but like… that doesn’t mean i can’t drive, right?

hell, i’ll walk. fine. 

(don’t worry. i actually have two layers of balaclava, which i wore yesterday along with a hat, and had to pull down because i was dying of heat because it was actually 20 degrees, the wind chill advisory didn’t start until today. so i think i got this. and if the sidewalks aren’t clear i’ll walk in the road, because nobody’s supposed to be driving on it.)
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fabledshadow replied to your post “ok so a

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fabledshadow replied to your post “ok so a travel advisory is in place for all of the city of buffalo,…”

Please be super careful! Best travel wishes!

Thanks! Ha, I cheated. I texted with a coworker who lives nearby and he was like “oh i’m going in too” and so I hiked out to the main road and across it, and then waited and he picked me up. So that was easy.

I walked about a tenth of a mile, in the road because the sidewalks were impassable, and oh my gosh. Nobody’s taking today off– either they’re peons who don’t get paid days off so it’s work or don’t pay rent, OR they’re important and so can’t take a day off at the drop of a hat, and as a consequence everyone is on the road except the school buses. 

So I got that far, and stood in a rut next to the road feeling the inside of my nose freeze, and thought, “well, I could make it the rest of the way, but I’d be miserable and might get hit by a car,” and had time to be glad I hadn’t refused my coworker’s offer before he showed up. 

The roads aren’t bad– it’s not slick snow, not heavy or wet or anything, it’s pretty powdery. But there’s a foot of it, and it’s in the way, and we’re going to get heavy wind all day.

So we’ll see what happens. The coworker is also the store manager and said he told everyone else not to come in, it’s just him and another long-time employee who lives very close. They figure they can handle it. So I’m here for the whole online department, and they’re here for the rest, and probably there won’t be a lot to do, but I’m getting paid twenty-five cents above minimum to be here so I’m gonna be here. *shrug*
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