Michael and Jaspenelle

Home Again, Home Again

I should probably update everyone to let you know Michael got home safe and sound. Our van is still stuck at our friends, we will try to retrieve it tomorrow or Saturday. A coworker with a Jeep and chains brought him home, he is also taking him to work and back tomorrow as well.

The snow finally tapered off a two or three hours ago, we are to expected scattered snow showers through the night, maybe another inch or two of snow. We have about 28 inches on our patio, another two inches won’t make much of a difference at this point. Coeur d’Alene (just east of us) received just over three feet of snow. Records broken all around.

Now to dig out!

Record Broken!

It is official, the weather service says we have broke then 13 inch 24 hour snow fall record set in 1954. 17 inches! Beat it by 4 inches! It is still falling. Huge fluffy flakes, it isn’t packing snow though.

The snow is to my knees (approx 20 inches) we live on the South Hill and get more snow then the rest of Spokane. Some parts of Deer Park (outlaying areas) for 3 feet! For those who got snow, what is your total at the moment?

As promised I went outside and grabbed some photos.

Hasn’t Mother Nature decorated beautifully for the solstice? Impassable roads or not, it is so pretty!

(More photos here…)

Snowmageddon

So Michael managed to get to our friend Shannon’s house last night (thank you so much Shannon.) She lives lower on the hill then us. Michael figured he would give the hill a try this morning again.

But it was not meant to be.

We have about 20 inches on the patio right now. Michael’s van has quite a high profile but it is still not looking possible, the snow is up to the top of his tires. He started digging out at 4:30 this morning but gave up half an hour ago (2 hours later.) He is going to walk over to the arterial and one of his coworkers with a truck is going to pick him up and take him to work.

City buses are on hold right now too, 17 are stuck around the city. According to the news, the main arterials up the hill are more or less clear but the side streets haven’t be touched. It is illegal for independent plows to do city streets. I guess it is a legal issue but I wish the city would hire independent plows.

The snow is still coming of course, 3 to 6 more inches expected by noon. That is potentially over 20 inches for us on the hill. At my Aunt’s in Canada (Kitchener, Ontario) they are expecting that much and they live in a snow belt. Their weatherman is using a term I want to borrow, Snowmageddon!

I’ll take some pictures once dawn breaks.

Michael can’t come home…

So the city is treating all roads and closed right now. Why? Well because it is snowing.

We live on the South Hill (for those who don’t know Spokane, it is a 2500 foot hill in the city - Michael works at the bottom, we live at the top.) Michael normally takes Thor up but chains are required and it is backed up a couple miles and people are stalling out. He is in the Fred Myer parking lot at the bottom on the hill right now. All the other roads are closed and clogged so plows can’t get up them.

We are use to snow of course, Spokane is right between the Cascades and the Rockies, but normally we don’t get more then 4 inches at a time since we are in a valley. We have gotten 9 to 11 inches in 9 hours and they are calling for solid snow and possibly 10 more inches by tomorrow. The city puts deicer down but it is too cold for it to work (it needs to be 15°F and it is 9°F.) It has been below 14 for about a week now.

We are having a black out problem too. The power keeps browning out here.

I am not overly concerned, we do have blankets and such in the van and Michael’s boss said anyone who can’t get home is welcome to come back and stay there for the night. I would appreciate positive thoughts for Michael though. He is an excellent driver, I am just worried about those other people on the road and it is expected to get really cold tonight. And I miss him of course!

Anyhow I am going to go ahead and post this before the power dies…

EDIT: Michael managed to make it to our friend Shannon’s house and is staying there for the night.

Snow

Oh the weather outside is frightful…

…but the baseboard heater is delightful!

I am looking for any excuse to turn on any heat generating appliance today. The oven, the stove, a hot sink of dishes, my laptop. Windigo is of the same mind and sleeping on top of Michael’s old monitor, which nearly puts the baseboard heaters to shame. I don’t like using extra power (or rather I don’t like paying for it) but today it is excusable to turn up the heat a little. It is a balmy 65F inside.

And 6F outside! With wind, so make that -10F.

We are to expect it to be at or below zero by Tuesday with windchills of -25F. When it is that cold does it matter if we are taking Fahrenheit or Celsius? I think Damian and I will be skipping our morning walk for a few days. When I took the trash out yesterday the wind was so cold it made my chest hurt.

Look at this: (more…)

Financial Obstacles

Let’s see, in the past three and a half weeks I’ve given birth, got a bladder infection (remember to stay hydrated people!), the van has broken down, Damian and I have gotten thrush and now Windigo has an eye infection, it looks like Aos is getting it too.

Seriously, is financial stress part of parenthood? Why does everything seem to go expensively wrong at the same time.

The gas pump died on our van a week ago and apparently a former owner replaced the fuel line with normal hose so it has to be replaced too (since it was leaking.) $700 for that. We broke down in a parking lot on our way to my two week midwife appointment, that was fun in the blistering heat. Our friend Shannon came and picked up Damian and I though (bless her) while Michael waited for the tow truck.

Damian and I have thrush at the moment (it is basically a yeast infection in his mouth that got transfered to my breasts.) I get chronic yeast infections so it is not too surprising but it is certainly not making the nursing experience pleasant. We are treating it though and it is starting to improve. I feel guilty for giving it to him, though I know it is really not my fault. though I could cut more sugars out of my diet (which hasn’t been the best this past few weeks…) I had forgotten till now how much my physical and mental self suffers when I do not control my diet better. It is more stressful emotionally then financially. It is making Damian’s bowel movements irregular, it is hard to see him struggle. I have been wearing him in the sling most of the day so that he feels secure, it seems to be helping.

I called the vet today and explained that we really couldn’t afford to bring the cats in but that I know what is wrong with them (they get this thing about once a year, it is a reoccurring herpes eye infection. They get it when they get stressed.) I said we would bring them in if we had to though, they are part of our family after all. Luckily the vet was really understanding and though he can’t give us the antibiotic without seeing them, he can give us an anti-viral gel. Michael is picking it up after work. We have never used this treatment on them so fingers crossed that it works.

Does anyone else has this problem with any of their animals? Is there anything preventative you do for it (other then trying to keep them low stress?)

The +90F heat isn’t helping any of this. We don’t have screens so we can’t open the windows to get a breeze going (we only have AC in one room) the cats would get out if I opened them as is. I called the landlady about it today and tried to be as polite as possible. She was also understanding (I am thankful for all these small miracles) and is going to see what she can do about it.

I am wondering what will happen next and how we will get through it. I know we will, we always do, and if anything this makes Michael and my relationship stronger because it shows us how much we need each others support. I am quite an optomistic person but this is even dragging me down I guess.

This will probably be amusing to some, but when I am feeling down I love listening to Walking in Memphis to calm my mind. It is such a beautiful song. Marc Cohn has such and amazing voice. Music is a force more powerful then the darkest mood in my life.

Flooding

Spokane’s normal high for us this time of year between 65F and 70F but for the past few days we have been in the high 80s. Most of our water comes from snow melt and this winter we had the second highest snowfall on record, which to a certain extent is a good thing since we have had a few years of low snowfalls. However the 80F weather is making the snow melt very fast and we have seen some pretty wide spread flooding.

On Saturday Michael and I went to a few parks along the Spokane River, which is quite near flood stage. I am use to the water level on most of the dams being higher on one side then the other but most are pretty much just letting all the water through at this point.

This picture is taken across the river from Boulder Beach, a summer swimming hole. Not that you can see the swimming hole at the moment as it is currently covered in quite a bit of water. (This is what the same area looked like in March a couple years ago, that is Michael up on one of the boulders.) I believe the trail to the beach is also covered, though we didn’t cross to that side of the river. People forget how dangerous the water is when it is this high, it flows very fast and is very cold, a few people had to be rescued from the river this weekend.

Since Michael and I live up on Spokane’s South Hill, we are in no danger of being affected by the flooding but I hope all my friends over in North Idaho (where the worst flooding has been so far) will be okay. It is suppose to cool way down tomorrow but they are forecasting a lot of rain so I am not sure how much of a difference it will make as far as the flooding goes.

Winter Bitching

Michael and I start my Bradley classes tonight, thank goodness it is not snowing yet. I like the snow, but enough is enough! It is no longer white and fluffy, but ice. The city is running out of places to put the snow so they are piling it in a ridge in the middle of the streets downtown, this “ice ridge” was up to my waist today. For the past few days it has been warming up to just above freezing, enough to melt the ice ridge enough to coat the streets in water which then turns into a 1/4-inch thick layer of ice at night. This thin ice is unbelievably slick (or I am unbelievably uncoordinated…) and clear like glass. Some of the water is pooling by the cross walks and there is 1/2-inch of seemingly solid ice (thankfully not completely clear.) When you step on this ice though you go right though and are halfway up your calves in icy water. Urban flooding meet freezing nights!

Wonderful!

Today a construction grader when by my work 3 times, slowly whittling away at the ice ridge, followed by two plows with their blades not all the way down. They were spreading the slush over the road, I suppose in the hopes it would melt. Where is that melted water suppose to go anyways? All the drains downtown are blocked by, you guessed it, more ice and snow piles. doesn’t matter either way, it wasn’t warm enough to melt so now we have an inch of compact ice on the downtown streets.

Lovely!

Then the parking lot I work in… The ice ruts are so bad that the smaller cars are getting high centered. Even the 4-wheel drive vehicles were getting stuck today. Of course this is my fault, since I cannot magically make the ice melt. We don’t even have anymore salt (the offices fault, not mine) and our plastic snow shovel isn’t going to beat ice, it just isn’t. Trust me people, if I could get ride of the ice, I would, I am out a lot more skating (I mean walking) in the lot then you. I do not enjoy it. It was so icy this morning that the doors on the pay boxes were totally frozen shut.

Fantastic!

I am more then ready for winter to be over. I know this snow is great for our aquifer, we had so little rain this past Spring/Summer/Autumn. Still if it warms up too fast we are going to have flooding like we I hear we did in 1996, which caused region wide damage of about $800 million. (I am so optimistic aren’t I?) I can’t wait for that two to five inches of snow expected tonight and tomorrow. Climate change, ain’t it fun? It is never going to end…

Still, in a half-assed attempt at optimism, I’ll take the ice over the tornadoes back East.