Deja Vu, Baby

It’s hard not to let the weather dominate our lives right now. We’re in a relentless pattern of a couple of storms a week, each with shovelable snowfall. We’ve had to cancel and reschedule appointments and get togethers; rethink plans, activities and errands. We believe it has been about ten years since we had a winter as intense as this one.

We drove down to Rhode Island yesterday to visit with my Mom, Carrie and Isabella. Knowing some school districts had delayed openings we wanted to get an early start. That was impeded by a dead battery in our only car. Luckily Chuck has a battery charger-booster gizmo which plugs into an electrical outlet and acts like a good samaritan with jumper cables. So much for the early start but we were soon out and rolling. State highways were good. Town and city roads were mixed to miserable. Worcester was a major challenge and a big delay. The two lane roads we drove on were down to one lane. Some of the side roads were nearly impassable due to snow which had fallen the day before.

In terms of impact, this last storm feels as if it is the final straw. There is just nowhere for urban dwellers to put the new snow. Heck, it is becoming a serious challenge and concern for those of us living in the country. And whenever the DPWs do what they must do and push back the snow to the curbs, residents’ arduous shoveling is undone and the cycle begins again - only with much, much taller piles of snow.

Had we not been running so late, I would have been a better blogger on several occasions. The first was on Goddard Memorial Drive. One of the flat roofed industrial companies had cranes in place next to the building. A swarm of workers was up on the roof shoveling snow into what appeared to be large tarpaulin bags. Then the bags were lifted by crane down to the ground. Similarly, down on Route 146, the new WalMart also had cranes lifting sacks of snow off their expansive roof. These efforts may seem extreme, but one look at this video would send any business owner in search of relief from the snow load on their own roof. It certainly had us out with the roof rake again today.

Our visit with family in Rhode Island started late but was great. Isabella now weighs 9 pounds, 15 ounces / 4.5 kilograms! She is strong and lovely and a pleasure to be with. Carrie has started back to work half-time and is adjusting quite well to that transition. From Sutton, Massachusetts to Johnston, Rhode Island we could see the evidence of the band of weather which brought more ice than snow. Every twig was glistening with a coating of ice. Thankfully, it did not appear to be anywhere near as thick as the ice storm of 2008. Even much farther south at Al and Carrie’s home, the ice had locked Carrie’s car in place in their driveway. With a bit of shoveling, some rocking back and forth of the car and a judicious placement of a metal AAA mesh strip, Uncle Chuck and Auntie Lee soon had her car free.

See what I mean about how hard it is to not let the weather be the dominate topic? One minute I’m talking about Izzy’s awesome progress and the next I’m shoveling snow again!