Weather or not, I write about it

10390445There are a couple of reasons I don’t write much about the weather:
1) it’s so ephemeral
2) if I complain now, there’s the fear the next time could be worse

Still, the weather last week, for whatever reason, beat me down. It wasn’t 70 inches of snow. In fact, in the city of Albany proper, it wasn’t much snow at all, though some of the outlying areas got more than a foot.

That was the problem, really. The meteorologists, even 36 hours out, were candidly unsure of the forecast. The Winter Weather Advisory suggested 1-3 inches of snow, plus sleet and freezing rain.

Tuesday morning: looks dry. I walk out to go to work and realize that walking is treacherous. As bad as it is on the sidewalks, though, it was far worse on the roads. Crossing the streets was hazardous, not just from the fear of falling, but from the very real fear that some car would run me over since they don’t slow down in recognition of the road conditions.

I take two buses to work each morning. Bus number 1 was 5 minutes late, arriving at the transfer point just after when bus #2 should have been arriving.

I’d never seen anything quite like this: all of the traffic at Washington and Lark heading east on Central Avenue and Washington Avenue and north on Lark were backed up a couple of blocks. I heard dozens of car horns beeping, as though that was going to do any good.

The bottom line is that the second bus I took was over a half-hour late, and I ended up 45 minutes late for work.

By Tuesday evening, it had changed to white rain, or the wettest snow I can remember. I got home to try to shovel it, but the water content made it almost impossible. What I needed was not a shovel a Wet Vac, something to suck up the water. A local friend wrote on Facebook: “The Russian word for SNOW is СНЕГ (SNYEK). But many years ago, my dear friend… coined a new word: SNYUCK. That’s half snow and half yuck (ice, rain, sludge, etc.) – and that’s what’s happening outside in Albany, NY. It’s snyucking out!”

Wednesday morning, there were a number of school closings. Not Albany, and not the rural school district the Wife had to work in. By mid-morning, a blast of snow came into the area. I check the notices and while the outlining districts had closed early or canceled after-school activities, Albany merely noted a suggestion to run to pick up pone’s children early.

Still, I called The Wife to pick up the Daughter early, and a good thing too, because her 40-minute trip took an hour. While she was en route, I received a call from the after-care at 3:30, saying they were NOW closing at 4:30.

I went out to catch my bus, only to discover people waiting over an hour for the PREVIOUS bus. I took the westbound bus to Everett Road, deciding to walk home when I saw no connecting bus; this was a TERRIBLE idea. There were no shoveled sidewalks on Everett Road, which is an exit for Interstate 90. I’m walking part of the time in the street, in the dark, wearing a black coat; not recommended.

Thursday morning, Albany was the LAST of the schools to call for a two-hour delay. Surrounding school districts either had declared one 45 minutes or earlier, or had closed. Fortunately, the Wife’s school was also delayed.

I was grateful when The Wife offered me a ride home Thursday night.

So it was oddly enervating.

Picture, taken Wednesday, December 10, used by permission.

A post for ABC Wednesday.

Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

16 thoughts on “Weather or not, I write about it”

  1. Roger,
    You need to help with accessing blog. Sunday? I guess blog has more interesting info than the paper proper.it’s reading like an old fashioned police blotter.

  2. I love it…”snyucking” Awesome new word!!! (new for me anyway).

    I can tell this was a ‘challenging’ few days. Here’s hoping that’s the worst of the winter!!! (And the tooth fairy is real, too!!)

  3. Yep, I was housebound for a few days at the beginning of the month and the cedar tree where the little birds find shelter was devestated by snow. All is dry and snowless now though, – keep the faith!

  4. Snyucking is exactly how I would feel if we still had to go through that weather. I’m SO glad we can see our snow only on the mountains.

  5. Truly Roger.
    Saw the heavy snowfall in the news.
    Sad when we miss the bus!
    You know, if “weather” wasn’t there. what would many people talk about? 🙂

  6. I see you have the same problems as we have in Belgium when it dares to snow ! 3 snowflakes and the whole traffic breaks down ! The whole country is in a mess ! So far we haven’t had any snow and last year we didn’t have some neither, but the year before it was awful and they didn’t have enough salt and trucks to clean the streets, even the highways were unusable. And I thought we were the only once ….

  7. We had the perfect snow last weekend because it was all on the hills so all it did was beautify the scenery. Your journeys sound horrendous, cities are not the best places for snow.

  8. I live in a place where the saying goes – we have only three weathers, hot, hotter and hottest. But I believe that’s not true, because right now we are having such a lovely pleasant spring-like weather. I wouldn’t call that hot 🙂 But you are right, I shouldn’t talk about the weather, lest it turn otherwise on me.

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