Cyndi hung out from lunch time today. I went and picked her up, came home, and then we went to the "usual place" (Molly Brown's) where the waitresses know us by name. I had the pepper steak blue plate special and it was pretty dawgon good. The strognoff they served the other day was out of this world. Maggie got it and I proceeded to eat off her plate. I ate the leftovers for dinner tonight. Very delicious.
After that I worked while Maggie and Cyndi entertained themselves. They ended up making a snow man with the carrot nose and everything--a piece of which ended up in Sandie's mouth. When I finished work I went out back with Sandie and she frolicked around through the snow with me. It was downright adorable. Afterwards, though, she had little ice balls worked throughout the hair on her legs. We all took her over to the wood burning stove to keep her warm while we worked the ice out of her hair.
I need to find our police scanner! My dad called and told me that the airwaves were filled with chatter, so I looked all around for it and couldn't find it. Ugh, I'll need to do a more thorough search.
So after that the news became definite that Darion wouldn't be able to find a way home. Every route to get back up was closed. Cyndi wasn't happy and I can understand why. Tonight will be their first night apart since they've been married. Maggie and I played Cyndi and Darion's Wii while Cyndi went on Myspace and updated her status to indicate that she's very very sad. I know it's selfish to be this way, but I hate it when Cyndi gets upset or sad because it affects everyone around her. She's usually very lively and fun, so when she's down, it's not only noticeable, it's a tangible deflation of the mood. I understand that she can't be up all the time, but it still sucks when she gets down.
After looking like a big dork for awhile with Wii Fit I asked Cyndi if she was ready to go home. She didn't want to try to spend the night here, so we loaded up her stuff into my truck and pulled out to get her home. Holy stockings! Driving in the snow is very tricky! We did pretty well until we turned up First off of Nisqualli. First is an incline, so I only made it up so far and then stopped making progress. I tried putting the truck into 4 wheel drive low, but it did us no good, so I had to back down the hill and back out onto Nisqualli. Now, this all seems scary, but it actually worked to put Cyndi back into a better mood. We were laughing by the time we got back onto Nisqualli. After that little fiasco we made it to her apartment just fine and I helped her carry stuff in, hugged her goodbye, and went back out to my truck.
Then I was stuck. It took awhile of rocking back and forth, but I got out and went down the road. So, the falling snow, the eerie haze, the glow of the sky, and the abandoned landscape has a tendency to remind me of Silent Hill. Then, as I was driving down Second to get out the Bear Valley Road, there was a car sitting in the middle of the road and, judging by the amount of snow on it, it had been sitting there for a few hours. I imagine whoever it was got stuck and just left it. Later on I felt bad because I probably should've stopped and knocked on the window to make sure someone wasn't inside. Had there been, they'd be awfully cold. There is a hospital on that very street though... Anyway, that was a little weird, but then there were also a bunch of hoodlum-type guys walking around as well. I don't know what they were up to, but at 9 o'clock at night, I'm not betting it's anything good. It was afterward that Maggie and I made the connection that they might be out because there happen to be abandoned cars in the road where people had to leave them stuck in the snow. Seems like a good opportunity to break in and steal away a stereo or whatever. I'll bet the cops are busy taking care of the crazies that are crashing into to things because they still attempt to do the speed limit on all the roads.
Speaking of which, there are a bunch of crazies on the roads that still attempt to do the speed limit on all the roads. I don't know about you, but it irritates me when I'm driving carefully down the road through intense snow and some moron passes me because I'm not going fast enough. Boy, I wonder why the scanner was chattering so much?
So then, once I got home I was faced with a driveway that is on an incline. I didn't make it, so I got a shovel and started clearing away snow to make a path for the truck to go up. Maggie stood and talked to me while I shoveled. :-) It wasn't too long after I started that James, my neighbor down the street, came over with his own shovel and offered to help. Between the two of us we had the snow cleared away quickly and I was able to get the truck into the garage. I thanked him for his help and Maggie and I decided after that we need to send some fudge his way.
Personally, I rather enjoyed tonight's adventure. It's fun to get out and put down a challenge. Driving through the snow with a bunch of crazy people isn't a good thing, but figuring out how to get unstuck and find ways around terrain that can't be passed is the kind of thing I enjoy.
So tomorrow will likely be icy and dangerous as well, so I'm planning on working from home. Maggie got called by the school district tonight and was notified that the district will be closed for the remainder of the week. That means that school hasn't been in session all week and the end of this week marks the beginning of the Christmas break. So that's three weeks for Christmas vacation. Haha, that's pretty awesome. She'll be sad when May rolls around and they have to make up those days though... :-D
So that was my day in a nutshell. I didn't mention half the things that happened, but this is already getting to be a long post, so I'll wrap right here.
