Winter Wackiness

Well do I have some tales to tell today!!  So this morning I got up and started to get ready as usual.  I saw roommate and she said she hadn't heard anything about a delay or school closure.  I then remembered that the weather people had said we might have snow last night.  I then asked her if it snowed last night.  She said the radio said we had some but she hadn't looked outside yet.  I then went to my window and looked out.  I believe my exact words were, "OH my!"  There were nearly two inches of snow on the ground and the street and the cars.  But for some bizarre reason the Salem-Keizer school district did not delay school (which I think was particularly nuts.)

So I got ready to go...trying to be quick because I'm factoring in at least 30 minutes for my drive that would normally take 15-20 minutes.  Roommate has a job to, but she has a big heavy car with no traction tires.  She has to leave about 30 minutes before I do because her school today has an earlier start time.  Well, she can't get out of our driveway, which is a pretty steep uphill climb.  She calls me from her car and asks me to come push.  I'm dressed for

 school already but I put on my snow boots (thank you again mom, for insisting I bring those with me when I moved last year), my coat and went out to try to help.  Once out the door I meet our neighbor girl who's probably in the 3rd grade, who's usually very chatty.  She launches into about how cool the snow is and chatters away as I attempt to push roommate's car up the hill.  However, not even my incredible strength can accomplish this feat.  I am soon joined by 2 of our neighbors (on of them the little girl's dad) who help push the car.  With our powers combined we managed to push that behemoth boat all the way to the top!  Unfortunately, somehow during our quest I ended up behind the passenger side wheel - which did a lovely job of spraying my all over with slushy driveway snow.  Once roommate was on her way I returned to the apartment and wasted about 10 minutes in the bathroom using the hairdryer on my pants.  Then I had to run around like a mad woman grabbing my lunch and my coat and getting new gloves (my previous pair was soaked) and changing shoes and the like.  Then it was my turn to attempt the hill - solo.

Thankfully, my car has studded tires still and despite a little bit of floundering I made it up the hill with no problems.  The drive to school was insane.  All the roads were covered in slushy yuck except for Mission Street which is pretty much the biggest main drag in town besides I-5.  I made it to school and the drama for the day was mostly over.

After that it was smooth sailing.  The kids were actually very under-control considering the wild weather.  The assistant who spoke Spanish was there to run the morning, and the jobs I had to do were easy.  The afternoon was taken up by a lesson from the counselor, Library, and PE.  The only bad things were that the last half-hour was filled with chatty kids and I gave myself a paper cut while trying to pass out papers.  The kids were quite intrigued with that.  I made a hissing ouch sound (you know, like when you suck in air through your teeth) when I did it and then they all begged to see it.  Because apparently a paper cut is exciting news when you're a first grader.  Forget the snow, the sub, the art project, the sub got a PAPER CUT!!  My life's complete.