01:38 - 18.01.07
framed
Round about 2 in the am it started to sleet here. Bad sign for the rush hour trip in the morning. Fortunately, in this part of town, it quickly switched to the soft, light-weight snow which is much easier to shovel and also safer in terms of trying to drive through. In other parts of the city where the ambient air temperature was warmer, the rain turned to sheet or black ice. Not pretty at all. The commute to downtown was very quiet as a result. A lot of non-transit users deciding that leaving the driving to the professionals might be their best bet for getting to work in one piece and maybe on time too. There was a different connector bus driver this morning and he was chatting away in his heritage language on his cell phone when I arrived at his door. He had been calling his daughter to warn her about the roads. His commute from the south of the city had required double the usual travel time because of the conditions of their roads. We chatted about the weather, driving conditions and other oddities of living in a chinook belt that makes predicting weather no different than crystal ball gazing at best. The traffic on our commute west was light and free flowing. Snow instead of rain or sleet on that side of town you see.
The day with my grand-daughter was fun. Yesterday I had taught her how to sit back down from standing, so that she didn't hurt herself by falling the wrong way. There had been lots of giggles accompanying the lesson and today she wanted a repeat. She can stand on her own with just a bit of support from my knee. So the game today was stand up/sit down - over and over and over. Again my grand-daughter thought of it as a game and giggled throughout the activity. Most of the children's shows she likes to watch featured children learning about different musical instruments today. My granddaughter was working very hard to clap to the rhythm of the different songs played to showcase those instruments. Reggae and hip hop interspersed with bluegrass and folk were offered, but the most fun were the jive/jitterbug tunes, since she bounced in time to those tunes on my knee. I still can't work out how someone came up with a reggae version of Old MacDonald, but it did work very well altogether.
The workmen were back on the roof of the neighbour's home today as well. It took them over an hour to shovel off all the snow before they could proceed with their re-shingling. They didn't start up their stereo until after 1 in the pm, but the constant hammering meant my grand-daughter's main nap of the day was quite disrupted. She kept waking up at an unexpected barrage of noise, then falling back to sleep. Meant her nap time was the same length, but the amount and quality of her sleep was much less. By 5 pm she was totally worn out. The radio station seemed to be celebrating the anniversary date of the release of the first Led Zepplin album almost 4 decades ago. Interspersed were tunes like "Ruby Tuesday" and a lot of classic Queen. Mixed in with the music from my grand-daughter's shows, it was quite the cacophany. Another day in paradise for sure.
My son drove me home about the same time as usual. We were laughing at Alice Cooper's repartee on his show. Funny man. There had been a report of a very serious accident in my end of town, so my son was taking his time travelling knowing at some point that traffic was likely to be an issue even though rush hour was long passed. The scene of the accident was on our regular route to my home. As we arrived there the last of the detour signs were being removed and emergency crews were decamping. About 4 hours after the fact I think. I don't envy the jobs of those people, but I truly admire their ability to cope with what they have to see every day after someone else's carelessness or negligence. Just very sad.
I walked into my house and was a little concerned by the absence of movement or sound. The braver felines - the girls - usually saunter out to meet me as they stretch from their interrupted-by-my-arrival naps in the evening. Tonight nothing - no response - even when I called and coaxed. Hmmm. Went upstairs. Found the door of the main bathroom had finally come completely off and was lying across the entrance of said room. It was apparent one of the cats had tried to push open the door and instead totally unhinged it. It had only been hanging by a stripped screw anyway, being in the same shape as much of the rest of this old house. I would prefer a door on the bathroom, because I really don't want to share my shower time with the cats, nor do I enjoy finding my bath towels covered in cat hair. That is the reason we shut the door and why they do their best to push it open when we aren't around to stop them. Warm, soft bath towels are one of their favorite places to burrow into - especially on snowy, wintery days. No real harm done, but it was obvious that the cats felt that judgement and retribution was about to be visited on their furry little selves. Like a bunch of toddlers they were, hiding out and huddling together for comfort. It was obvious who the likely culprit was. The four "innocents" were all cuddled up together on my bed while Mr Melchizedek was apparently exiled from that prized location and was cowering under the tablecloth on one of the dining room chairs. Alone and isolated from the comfort of his peers, he was. I just went about my nightly routine of cleaning and preparing supper for my youngest. The "innocent" cats emerged fairly quickly when they realized that nothing much was going to happen - other than a couple of uncharacteristic cuss words as I tried to prop the broken door in the door frame of the bathroom. Mr Mel was a lot more reluctant to emerge from his hiding place. Even as we speak he has that caught in the headlights look about him every time I glance his way. Who knew cats had consciences, eh?
Good night dear diary.
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