My turn again.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
We have split up the publishing duties, but we welcome everyone in IAN to do daily diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
If you would like to fill in, either post in thread or send FloridaSNMom a Kosmail with the date. If you need someone to fill in, ditto. FSNMom is here on and off through the day usually from around 9:30 or 10 am eastern to around 11 pm eastern.
If you'd like to be part of the Itzl Alert Network, please leave a comment asking to join, or send us a message asking to join. We'd love to have you. The bigger our network, the less likely someone will be stranded all alone.
It started snowing here about 11:00 AM on Thursday. It took a while for me to be able to see it out my window - the window in my office being well above my head. One of the men in the lab came in to tell me he was leaving to pick up his youngest from grade school because the school was closing early. I caught the boss just as he was leaving for work and told him to stay home. He apparently had the lab laptop with him because he's never (and I do mean NEVER) mentioned having a personal computer at home, and I did get several emails forwarded to me by him over the next hour or so.
In the interest of getting home before midnight, I left work at 1:00 PM Thursday afternoon. The tram was running as usual, but the streetcar and the bus were running slow. We may not be terribly used to snow here in Portland, but it happens often enough that most people know to slow down when they're driving - I'd have been much happier about the bus speeding up over the bridge, which is my last stretch before home, if that bus had had chains on. I got home at 3:00.
I babysat from 4:30 to 6:00, which is the difference between when the grandkids' father had to leave to get to work and when my daughter got home.
Friday I got up at my usual time, looked outside, fed my cat and went back to bed. My mother called to tell me some news at 8:00 and about 20 minutes later I called my boss to let him know I was staying home because I could think of absolutely nothing that couldn't wait till Monday. That was about as exciting as it got all day, though I did get some cooking that I had been putting off done. I also called my secondborn and got us caught up with each others' news, and a local friend that some of you might remember since she posts here occasionally as Lainie. It was snowing again by 1:30 and hadn't stopped when I went to bed.
The libraries were shut down for bad weather, so I have a feeling that my granddaughter didn't go to school on Friday any more than I went to work.
Saturday. Up, not long after my usual time. My daughter called around 11:00 and asked if I could keep the kids while she and a friend walked to get some groceries. They came over to my place and I fed them cinnamon toast and read a chapter in the book I've been reading to my granddaughter. Then she cleaned the cat box under my supervision and I read another chapter - she asked for more food and got a hard boiled egg, which she only ate the yolk of. After that we went over to their place and I set a timer for 30 minutes and let them play outside. My grandson came in about 5 minutes before his sister did - she only came in when the timer went off. Due to getting yelled at Thursday evening over the mess on the kitchen floor, I made them stand in front of the sink and beat the snow off themselves and take their boots off. I also make the boy sit in front of the heater till he warmed up and his pants were about half dry. The snow is the dry and powdery stuff that takes forever to melt, so I did manage to get most of it swept outside before it turned to water.
Sunday, warmer and nasty. It's going to be a right mess getting to work tomorrow.