December 17, 2009 - Thursday

Snow, and more snow.

I woke up quite early this morning, and refilled the heater, and then went back to bed for a bit. I tried to look out the window, but the window was fogged up and the snow was piled up too, so I didn't see much. Tried to sleep more, didn't happen really.

I watched the news of course, and later on the cooking show in English. I don't like this one too much, as I don't like the host much. Bring back Anthea with her housekeeping tips!

I had an early lunch and then I walked to work. I left the apartment at 3 pm, and made my way towards my school. In a way it wasn't too bad. The sidewalks on the main road had been cleared and I made good time. However, at one point there was a big truck stopped right in my way. The driver was putting chains on his truck. The snow was piled up on my left and I couldn't go behind the truck without clambouring over a mountain, the front of the truck was almost in traffic. What to do? I waited a few minutes, hoping for a break in the cars, but there wasn't one. Finally I saw a couple of small cars in a row, so when they were nearly in front of the truck I whipped around the truck. I made it to the drugstore and bought a few things for myself for the school. When I got to the school, I went inside and grabbed my snow shovel and my "dump". I went towards the apartment's parking lot, but I couldn't get there. It had been completely snowed in. The bicycles in the shelter were covered with snow. There were a few handlebars and saddles poking out of the snow, but that's about it. I tried to clear a way, but there was just so much snow. I couldn't go that way to my stall, I had to go around via the road.

The driveway entrance was a little piled up as the snowplough had already been through that road, but it wasn't too hard to clear. I spent an hour or so trying to clear enough to get to my parking stall. I had to take the snow out to the road and add it to the pile there. Then, when I got near the pile of snow in my stall, I had to pile it up somewhere else. I maybe shouldn't have piled it inside the parking area, but there really wasn't anywhere else to put it. I shoveled, and moved snow around for another hour, and looked at my watch. I had been working for 2 hours and I wasn't done. My class was in another hour. I called my student and cancelled her class. She didn't mind too much thankfully, as she had to prepare for an overseas business trip, but it isn't something I like to do.

I sent hubby a text asking him to call me, and he did when he finished work. He ended up coming to my school to help me out. He did a lot of shovelling for me, and was able to park his car in my space, but just barely. I'm not sure if students will be able to do it on Saturday or not.

By now it was about 6:30 and we were both exhausted. We went into my apartment and had a rest. I offered him some tea, which we both had, and we just vegged for a while.

Although I had plans to make dinner tonight, we ended up going out. We went to Cocos and had a not-very-good pork stew. It was supposed to be their new special, but it was rather tasteless. It's sad when the best part of the meal is the mustard!

We came home afterwards and had to shovel a bit more snow here at home. It wasn't nearly as bad as at my school, as it had been done yesterday. Hubby seemed surprised that I jumped out to help him. It didn't take too long, although I had to remind myself not to try to keep up with him. I'm not that strong!

We came in the apartment and both of us changed into our pajamas right away! We vegged for a bit and I made us some tea. We watched the end of Wall-E and then Japanese news. Apparently, Tsuruoka is going to get 50 more centimeters of snow tonight. Oh, Heavens to Betsy. We watched ER as well, and it was really good. They had one of the older characters on and it was nice to see her again. It was nice that they gave the nurses a couple of scenes with her too, as they are the only ones that are still from her time.

Anyway, I really want to get to bed earlier tonight, so I'm going to end this for now. Hopefully we won't get 50 cm of snow...hopefully. Night!