Scientist, Editor, Wife, Mommy of 3

I need to get video of Samuel saying "Brrrrrrr!" It's cute, and apropos. I actually have a backlog of photos and videos, but haven't been able to upload them yet. Gee, maybe it has something to do with the BIG ASS ICE STORM.

I left work early on Tuesday, as the ice was coming down and i wanted to get my rear-wheel driven butt home before things got truly nasty. The trip went well, until I slip-slid my way up the sharp turn-hill to get onto our country road, then it took another several minutes to slip-slide up our driveway. More ice, more ice, more ice, then some snow.

Everything is covered in a snow-ice-snow sandwich, and oh look! More snow is coming!

Power went out Wednesday morning.

The house is down to about 50F (10C).

The first night, we brought Samuel to bed with us, but that meant no sleep for anyone. Last night, I put Samuel to bed in his own frigid room, with a comforter, two thick blankets and a hot water bottle. He was so exhausted after a day in a cold house and no nap - and cold or tepid food - that he feel asleep quickly, and only had one wakeup.

Dixon's ok. It's easy to keep someone bundled and warm when they're not mobile. Samuel is a whole other story.

They're saying 7-10 days before we get power back. There were trucks in Prospect, so maybe they'll be heading our way, up 329, soon.

We're running the fireplace, but it doesn't have an air return or a fan, so we don't get as much benefit from it as we should. Our space heater isn't throwing off much heat, either. Or it doesn't seem to be, anyway. Maybe if we turned both off, the room would drop to 45, I don't know.

Thank goodness we got the generator when Ike blew through. We never expected to be using it again within 5 months! It can't run much more than the fridges, freezer and a couple of space heaters, so when I want to use the toaster I have to unplug everything else.

I think I'll take the boys and retreat to my friend Elizabeth's house. She's got power and she's got kids. We have another offer for warm accommodations from my SIL's PILs, but there are neither kids nor kid equipment there. I figure, at least Samuel will have playmates and I know Elizabeth's been itching for Dixon snuggles. It's a win-win, right?

Mom's feeling sufficiently unwell that she prefers to remain on her couch with her cats, but if this goes on too long, I hope they'll take up the offer of dad's fishing buddy and his wife (the SIL's PILs).

I couldn't feel my fingers or toes all day yesterday, and I had to go out to restart/refuel the generator several times. I felt very macho at times, but I also had a few sobbing fits, too, during which I took out my frustrations on the garage door.

I'd ask "what next?!?" but I don't dare.

Cold!

I've been hanging out all morning in the microscope room working on the computer. There are two very expensive, very fancy microscopes in this room, several computers and some other imaging equipment in the room. There is also a very powerful air conditioning unit.

One of the students is working on the confocal microscope on the other side of this tiny little room, and he needs the room to be quite chilly for his samples - below 16 degrees, to be precise. Now, that's degrees C (60 F for you Fahrenheit-inclined). That's a tit nipply, thankyouverymuch, especially if you're just sitting still, tap-tap-tapping away on a keyboard and trying to carefully manipulate a mouse. It's especially cold if you add in the factor of a BIG FAN blowing in your face and down your neck.

COLD!!

Let me tell you, I get quite a bit of relief when I step out of that closed-up, loud, frigid ice-box and into the stifling humid stairwell where it's 30 degrees warmer (F).

This can't be healthy.

Speaking of healthy, I've found out that another lab is going to be moving to another building. Why? Because everybody in the lab is getting sick. I'm not talking *whine* kof kof sick. No, I'm talking sick. I'm talking x-rays showing nasties in the lungs, phlegm and shit sick. Yes, I work in a sick building. Let us all hope that the time of my exposure here is not long enough to have caused any damage, and let's also hope that the infestation has not been bad in any of the walls in my lab.

We've had one faculty, then another, then another go down with illnesses, but you can't justify major building renovations on one or two people. But now that more people are coming down with it, I think something will be done. It makes sense that they waited, because people are all different and the problem may not have been all that severe, but now I think it's pretty damn obvious.

I wish I had an allergist on my friends list - I'd like to know if being in a sick building like this would tend to increase respiratory sensitivity to allergens. No one in my lab has been symptomatic, other than we notice that we sneeze more often. And then of course there's me and my headaches. The symptoms are supposed to be respiratory, though, so I don't think the migraines are a link.

*shrug* Wish this was my specialty, because I really don't know.

All right. I have to head back down to the ice-box. Gonna finish up down there, then head back up here and COMSTAT myself silly on the lab computer. FUN!

6am I wake up to my brand new alarm clock (thankyouverymuch). I open my shutters and note that the street is clear and my car is still clean of snow from the evening before.

6:35am I emerge from the bathroom and head to the kitchen, where I look out the window. I can barely see my neighbors' house through a veil of heavy falling snow.

7:20am I emerge from the house to find that over the past hour over an inch of snow has already fallen, and it's still coming down like mad. I send a little apology to the postman who has to navigate my front walk, which hasn't been shoveled. I'm sorry Mr. Postman. Think of this as punishment for all those times last summer when you didn't pick up my outgoing bills.

Anyway, I carefully brushed off the car so that I would have maximum visibility, but quickly realized that at the rate the snow was falling, my back window was totally useless. Oh well, I DID try.

My drive started out all right, until I arrived at the third stop sign - the one on the semi-major thoroughfare where there was actually some traffic. I couldn't stop. Or rather, I couldn't stop by any conventional method. My car did a little sideways crab crawl and came to rest with a small *bump* against the curb. I busted out laughing and was still giggling when I came to the next stop sign, where I tried more coasting and less brakes. This time, instead of the crab crawl, I made a slow turn to the left - Wheeeeeee! I stopped behind the stop sign, believe or not, but I was pointed in the wrong direction. I was fortunate that the car to my left, which had the right of way, was courteous and waited for me. I smiled and waved, while I managed to straighten myself out and proceed through the intersection - still laughing.

Surprise! There's a severe weather alert from the NWS - guess what? It's a SNOW ADVISORY! Not that I needed an advisory. There were subtle hints of snow in the vicinity. I'm pretty good at picking up on things like that.

That would be the sound my teeth would make if I went outside right now - especially with my hair wet, as it is right now.

I woke up this morning and for the first time in about a month, my cat wasn't in the bed with me. She had left me for warmer climes: the floor next to the oil heater. I felt just a little abandoned, but I did appreciate the freedom of movement.

I'm stuck at home, waiting for the repairman to show up. I have an appointment for the replacement of a couple of parts to my hot water heater which, strangely, has been behaving since Monday, although judging by my water bill was misbehaving over most of my vacation. By "appointment", of course, I mean "sometime between noon and 5". How convenient.

Oh well. I'll suck it up and sit here. I'll even be good and read these papers on Pseudomonas aureofaciens and Burkholderia cepacia whose pdfs have been sitting patiently on my desktop for days. If I'm REALLY good, which I don't think I am, I'll even incorporate them into the background of my growing paper.

My whopping, beautiful, whale of a paper that will be a gem in the crown of my PhD thesis. The thesis that will not be filled with fragment sentences like these.

*smirk*

First things first, though:
My cold feetsies need socks
My face needs some moisturizer
My tummy needs food!
Coffee - coffee would be nice
I think I'll build a fire (in the fireplace, of course)

Anybody think I'm procrastinating yet?

One last thought - Cuddle duds are one of the BEST clothing inventions EVER!