In-SANE.

We are home. We have Burning Crusade. We stood for a half hour in 29-degree weather in the dark in a strip mall with one store open to accomplish this. I think this is an experience I would rather not repeat, on the whole, but it had its moments. People in t-shirts. People in shorts. The guy ahead of us in line was wrapped in a sleeping bag that came to his knees. From his knees to the top of his tennis shoes, his legs were bare. For all I know, he could have been illegal without the sleeping bag, though I assume he was another of the 'shorts' set. I was in pants and a jacket, and wanted long underwear, a hat, and gloves (having foolishly not brought these last). I am not cold-hardy. But we have the game. Installing now. Will begin patch and then to bed. Which will be very, very welcome not only for sleep but for WARMTH.

(And Scott came with. He has work tomorrow, I don't, so I had half-expected to go by myself and pick them up, and thought I wouldn't have minded. I would have minded. I'm glad he was there. Although I don't think that's why he was there - he just wanted the game! ;)

... I wonder if my parents would laugh at me, or understand? Neither of them played online games (with dial-up, who would play WoW? Yikes!) and I don't think they even played many single-player games like this (card games, yes, and stuff like Civilization perhaps, but not this). But we went camping in weather colder than this and they enjoyed it (so did I - how have I lost so much hardiness?) and Dad took me out to watch a meteor shower once. I don't remember the meteors much, or where we were, but I remember that it happened. And I know that when camping, and strongly suspect that when watching the meteor shower, we were better-prepared. I simply didn't think ahead, consider the time and line and weather and all, and prepare. Oops. I'm feeling better now that I'm warm, though, so perhaps the only price of this not thinking ahead is feeling silly.

Hmmm. Snow day!

It is really pretty out there. There's snow in some areas, freezing rain in others. My 'easy' route to Newberg goes through Sherwood and Tualatin. The school districts in both have closed for the day. So has the school district where work is, the school district where I live, Newberg school district (which would be on snow routes if it was only bad up at the elevation of my parents' house - closed means it's bad down near the city, too), and everything in the vicinity of the town where I need to pick up Basta's shots appears to be closed too.

High in the mid-30s. I seriously doubt it will thaw out enough to go to most of the places I planned. There is a chance that mid-afternoon I can get to Newberg, and if it looks good I will, but only if it looks good. Otherwise I'll skip that and just do the local stuff. Snow day. I get to take photographs and play World of Warcraft (a lot of the to-do list can be done from home, but not so much that I won't get to play).

The road reports for the freeways don't actually look that bad but in this weather, if I didn't have the day off, I would work from home and not go into work because of the side streets. I'm pretty sure that means that going to Newberg (which, although I can do it almost entirely on highway/freeway, means going over Rex Hill at about ) is a bad idea. Oh, wow. Okay, the traffic reports online show no major issues. The verbal one on the radio tells me that the steady-no-accidents is steady at about 10 miles per hour. I don't think the freeway is in good shape either!

When I first saw it, my heart ached. This weather killed my Dad. It's hard to see. And then it hit me - first, I've always loved snow. Second, from the way he photographed it, either he loved it or he loved other people's love of it. And third, this didn't kill him. If the weather had been like this, he would probably not have gone, or would have gone with chains on very cautiously. Bad luck and borderline weather did, but not this.

I wish he could see it - I hope he can, from somewhere. I think he might like it, and if he didn't, I think he'd enjoy my love of it.

Scott called when he got to work to tell me that he was there safe (we normally email for that, smart man, as I would've called if I'd not had anything by not long after he called!), and also to tell me I probably didn't want to go anywhere today. I think he's right, unless the afternoon really does a number. (Though if it melts the snow and the roads are safe, I might dare to go to the library, locally.)

Happy birthday to me, I get a snow day!

BOOK! Almost book, anyway.

Tamora Pierce's Terrier is now in transit to my library for my hold, finally. Which means it should be in tomorrow (today if I'm lucky, although I'm not sure if that matters since if the roads don't clear, I won't be going in - and I'm betting against today due to the snow). Book! I might even get to read it this week since I've decreed I'm taking Saturday off. Normally I could read it within a day or two of getting it but maybe not while doing 40 gazillion other things. But Saturday evening when Scott is at his game sounds like prime reading time to me!

Weather fun.

Scott's workplace strongly encouraged people to go home. He's home. (I threw a snowball at him when he got here. Maybe I can lure him out for a snowball fight!)

Our neighbor says they're requiring traction devices on the freeway. I'm not sure where but it sounded like she commuted north, toward Portland.

One of Scott's coworkers (at least) drove in from Salem. He's got an ugly drive home ahead of him.

I'm REALLY glad this morning that we went to the midnight sale for Burning Crusade. Because if we had not, I do not think we would have it before tomorrow at the soonest. And it's kinda neat. :)

It was a birthday. Far from the best, but not horrid.

I'm glad we got Burning Crusade last night, because we wouldn't have gone today in the snow. On the other hand, while I'm grateful in general that it patches efficiently, I'm not really grateful in specific. Instead of sleeping during a lengthy patch, since there wasn't one, I got sucked in and played until 2 am. Scott's alarm went off at 6 since he had work. I was up by about 7:30 or so because I could not stay asleep once it was light, having been brought that close to waking.

Then I had the mixed joy (it's a beautiful day, and hey, I get to stay home) and frustration (I needed to get some of that stuff done) and worry (Scott's driving in that, but okay, it's just snow, not yet packed, and he knows what he's doing). And I got a headache, due in part to not enough water (which I quickly fixed), in part to sinus issues (not sure whether to hope those are allergy-related rather than virus, or hope I'm not that allergic to the cats), and in part due to very tired. But I don't nap well. So in a little bit now I will go to bed, and when I wake up tomorrow is when I wake up.

I got flowers from Beth and Chuck (they are lovely, and I must write a proper thank you some century but I fear it won't be this week, at least!). I got cards from several people (and there may be more in the mail, for all I know). The one that Uncle Jim sent was funny and cute and made my evening (since I didn't go out to get the mail until just a little bit ago).

Speaking of which, when I did so? The snow in the road has now been packed down and is slick enough to make walking across the road a rather dicey idea. (Sidewalks are not packed down and are fine.) So, I think I won't go in to work tomorrow early. I think I'll work from home until it clears off; depending on how late that is, I may end up working from home, period.

That's not entirely a bad thing. My phone calls today have spawned yet more phone calls, plus I need to get back to several places where I couldn't get through or (in the case of a couple local ones) where they were closed due to inclement weather. And tonight's mail brought a big batch o'forms to fill out. @whee. It also brought a Kakuro magazine, though! Not that I'm in any danger of running short of those any time soon.... Hee.

As an aside, one of the people who sent me some Kakuro stuff was dormouse_in_tea who, among other things, found the "black belt" Kakuro book, which I've wanted for a while but couldn't find (I had some of the others in the series). What was I, nuts? Ahem. I can't say I've never met a Kakuro that didn't challenge me. The challengers almost always do, the hard ones often do, sometimes another does. In this book? Pretty much all of them do. It's hard. The little Dell magazines, the easy and medium sections are mental candy. It's a question of how fast I can write, not how fast I can figure. This? This is not mental candy. It's very, very fun, although in a different way.

I am uploading a number of photos of the snow today, as well as a photo of the window above the door and one of Babe (because nothing says me like eclectic uploads). There are even a couple different snowmen! And the 'official' photo of the day is the lavender in the snow. The photos are at (or will be at for those still uploading - there are three in progress as I type this): http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrielle/archives/date-posted/2007/01/16/ - the lavender bush is http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyrielle/360176740/

I am behind on replying to people who have sent me email. I must do this soon as I suspect some of them do not read this journal, oddly enough. :) But not tonight, not through a headache. For now I go get ready for bed.