On the upside, Dan and Joe began working for Manpower at Alcon today! Their usual schedule will be 3 p.m. till midnight, M-F, but they worked a bit this afternoon, getting acclimated and familiarized with their respective positions (they work the same schedule but in different areas of the company). They're very pleased, as well they should be.
On the downside, the winter weather forecast to show up around 4 p.m. instead moved in about five hours earlier, catching virtually all of us off-guard. I'd driven up to Keller to fetch Bryson from St. Elizabeth Ann Seton's (where Kirstin works) and it was just overcast and chilly. A couple of hours later frozen precipitation (snow pellets? sleet?) was falling, making the trip with Bryson out to collect Dmitry from school a trifle dicey. It changed back to rain, so I heaved a sigh of relief.
Too soon. Way too soon! I'd checked shortly before leaving to take Bryson back out to Keller and found light rain falling. No problem.
By the time we got out the door it'd turned into that slushy sort of frozen rain which splatters icily on the windshield. I-35W was a mess! Took me almost half an hour to get from the house onto that freeway, due to the stack-up on it, which backed up onto the access bridge. By the time I made it to 820, it was snowing in earnest. The farther north I drove (having exited on 377) the worse it got:
Met Kirstin at the SuperTarget at the Wautaga-Keller border, where the wind was blowing, the snow was heavy, and the parking lot was covered with the white stuff, making walking a tricky business. I called Don anxiously, making sure he'd left for home. Yes, he assured me, he had. He'd see me there.
To my surprise - and relief! - the snow lessened as I drove back toward Fort Worth (this time skipping I-35 in favor of taking 820E to 121S) and really, the roads and traffic weren't too bad at all. Was able to maintain a fairly steady 40 mph, and got home safely, to find nowhere near as much snow as there'd been up north.
After a while, it occurred to me that Don hadn't arrived home yet. Where could he be? Finally, when it'd been almost two hours since I'd spoken with him, I called his cell, to hear he's fine and not too far from the house. He saw little snow, but that didn't stop the traffic in Dallas from being utterly horrendous, so it took him 2 1/2 hours to get home. Kirstin said it took Matt three hours to get from Plano back home to Keller.
The storm system has moved off to annoy states to the east of us, and I don't see anything else building up out west, so hopefully this winter event is over.
Okay, okay, I know for those in Colorado (hi, Cheri!) or Michigan (yo, Lois!) or Pennsylvania (howdy, Cindy, Jane, et al!), the above photo is hilarious as an illustration of winter weather, but for this area....it'll do.
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