Snow. It started snowing last Sunday morning. I was almost to work at seven when I saw the first flakes drifting down to the earth. I parked in one of the covered lots and made my way to my assigned floor, throwing myself into the flurry of activity that is the first few hours of any day on a hospital floor. Get report, look up more information in the computer, prioritize patient care, touch base with the CNA, pick up my first patient's medications from the med room, see each patient (while trying not to be side tracked too much by each patient's needs before I can get in and see the other people, but still remember their needs for follow-up), give out medications, follow up on pain medications, re-medicating if necessary, paging the doctor for any concerns, coordinating with the various other disciplines and auxiliary services of the hospital for the day's care, so on and so forth. Hopefully, by ten, I can sit down and try to remember everything that happened so I can document it in the computer. In any case, at some point during this chaotic whirlwind of activity, I noticed that the whole campus had become blanketed in snow. James called to tell me that they'd cancelled church that morning, and every room I went in seemed to have the news playing, going into great detail about the weather conditions. Although getting home was a bit of a drama, I managed it. I then shrugged off this whole snow thing, chalking this up to Portland's annual winter scare - all bluff and bluster. I would bus into work tomorrow and then things would be back to wet as usual.
Perhaps I should explain my pre-conceived notions of snow. Growing up in Texas meant that it snowed once, maybe twice, each winter - usually in January or February. The whole metroplex would shut down for a few days while it thawed, turned to ice, and then melted away. Now, when I say it snowed once, I mean one snow fall, not one week or one period of snow fall. Once the snow ceased to fall from the sky, that was your quota for the year. What you saw was what you got, until it melted. Upon moving to Portland, with its wetter-but-otherwise-similarily-temperate-winters, I was never forced to change my opinions. Of course as children, we made the most of our snow days, being young, resilient, and liberated from school. It's very different when you work at a hospital and still have to go in to work on a snow day. At least the hospital was warm and I could stay indoors for twelve hours at a stretch. In any case, imagine my surprise when I awoke Wednesday morning to find, not wet streets and drizzling rain, but another white blanket of snow. Huh.
Since Wednesday, there has been at least a light snowfall each day. I thought things might be calming down as of yesterday, had James not told me of the weather report: lots of snow this weekend. Woke up to a fresh dusting this morning and thought about just staying in the house all day, but James wanted to adventure, so out we went. (Now, that's not to imply that James forced me out of the house . . . he bribed me with promises of Grand Central Bakery breakfast and hot chocolate.) So we bundled up and thought for a brief moment about walking the 1.6 miles to Multnomah Village, but somewhere between our door and the end of the parking lot, we decided to just try and drive the car. After several futile, and probably comical to any observers watching from a warm window, attempts to get our car up a slight hill and onto the main road, we opted instead to break out the snow chains rather than either walk or retreat back to our apartment. We got the chains on and that's all I'm going to say about that wonderful experience. We went to breakfast, then made several stops for some last minute Christmas shopping, got something for lunch, and made our way home. Throughout the day, a steady stream of dry, powdery snow drifted down into our eyes and onto our car. Every time we drove to another destination, we had to both brush the car off and scrape the windows (as heating up the interior melted the snow and re-froze before we got back to the car).
I don't intend for this to sound as if I've been complaining all week long. Several times while coming home, I've found myself giggling with glee at the opportunity to catch snowflakes on my tongue, or falling up to my knees in drifted snow. If it wasn't so cold and wet afterwards, snow would be really fun. As it is, my toes are thawing, the heater is on, and I'm happy for a warm cat in my lap as we watch the snow continuing to fall onto our long-dead herb garden on the back porch.
So, there you go. A lovely post about the snow. Oh, and you wanted pictures, too...
Winter Wonderland
One of our munchkin neighbors, bundled up for the snow.
