And Another Winter Whine

Okay, okay already. Just about the time I post what I thought was going to be the last “woe is me – I’m having a really sucky winter & you should feel sorry for me whine”, the elements proved me wrong.

“Yes dear”, Mother Nature informed me, “it could be worse and just to show you, here’s a sample. Enjoy!”

We started out with a nice little 8 inch snow in the wee hours around dark-thirty when no one wants to be out there dealing with it. About 8:30 AM, that snow turned to sleet and then into my favorite, freezing rain. It rained until well past sunset. Buckets of rain fell from the sky.

With nowhere for all that water to go because of the 8 foot snow banks everywhere, brown nasty pools of water threatened to swallow small cars whole. The incessant gunshots of huge branches breaking in the pines across the road peppered my day as the ice overwhelmed them. Branches that did not break hung down so low, it seemed a miracle they did not submit and snap.

Thankfully, I was either smart enough or more likely just lucky enough to have cleared my drive of the snow just as the sleet began in earnest. No major slush shoveling for me. Well, there was plenty to go around as it turned out, but not as bad as it could have been.
I had suffered through the dreaded find the sump hose that was buried deep and frozen hard in the snow bank next to the garage and unthaw it procedure just yesterday. The sump pump began to cycle every ½ hour or so. But because I had been smart or just dumb lucky, the water now had free unfettered access to the road and away to wherever it goes when it is not draining into my basement.

I have done everything I can do to meet this new twist on the winter of 07/08. Whatever happens now is out of my control. The lights flickered off and on all day, but so far (knock on wood) we have not lost power. We are screwed big time if we do. I have no generator. With no power, all those creature comforts I have taken for granted will become creatures all right. And I will not be comfortable.

But of all the inconveniences and lousy events of the day, the one that really got to me was when I lost my connection to the Internet at exactly 5 in the evening while taking a break from the soaking I was getting outside. I had looked forward to doing some googling, reading some blog posts and just generally wasting some time on the World Wide Web while my duds dried in the basement.

Sure I still had heat. Yes, the sump pump was still pumping. And yeah yeah yeah, the phone worked. But no Internet? How is one supposed to exist amidst such primitive and barbaric conditions?