Walk Under Ladders

When severe weather hits, keep your car off the slippery streets and ride with us.

11:45 a.m. – We’re told that the main office for the Research Foundation downtown would be closing downtown at 1:30, and that we could do the same, if we chose. I choose.

12:30 p.m.- Call one of my sister. She works for a drug store chain, and as it turned out, I had a related reference question, and therefore a legit excuse to call her in California. I’m lucky.

1:45 p.m. – The last of my hardy colleagues leave.

1:55 p.m. – I’m thinking the bus comes at 2:05, but I check the website, just to make sure. IT COMES AT 2:00! I shut off my computer and run downstairs.

2:09 p.m. – The bus was late. I’M LUCKY. The normal pattern is that it comes by our building, makes a turn at a circle down the road, and then it comes back and the passengers from my building get on. For some reason, though, the other passengers and I went out to meet the bus. Since the circle wasn’t plowed , the bus didn’t turn around. I would have missed it had I waited. I’M LUCKY, because I’m not sure another bus came out to Corporate Woods that day; they were pulling their buses off the road, except for the core routes, because they kept getting stuck.

2:25 p.m. – I’m waiting at the corner of Washington and L;ark for the #10 bus to come home. There was a supervisor vehicle at the stop. I asked him when the next #10 was coming. He said I had to go down another block (to Central and Henry Johnson) to catch it. I’M LUCKY I asked.

2:55 p.m. – The masses huddled at the kiosk were trying to get more info from CDTA from their cell phones. Only one could not reach CDTA by phone; I had tried twice when I was still in the office. I’M LUCKY that I lived near two of the core routes. Took the #12 Washington Avenue bus, which got stuck for about five minutes, trying to make a right turn onto Washington Avenue. Some doofy guy was laying on his horn, AS THOUGHT IT WOULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE. (Doofy, BTW, is a portmanteau from goofy and doofus.) I’M LUCKY we did finally get around the corner.
This bus meant a three-block walk. It’s technically illegal to walk in the street, and I scowl when people do it when we’ve had an inch or two of snow, but with a foot of the powdery stuff impossible to walk through, I was road-bound as well.
3:25 p.m.- Trudge home, drink hot chocolate. Carol and I watch an old Gilmore Girls.
4:50 p.m. – I’M LUCKY that I waited. My neighbor Dino plowed a path on our sidewalk and up to the steps. I still had plenty of shoveling to do, but it was made infinitely easier.

February 15

7 a.m. When i read on the CDTA website that only the core routes are guaranteed to operate, I decided to stay home.
8:30 a.m. Start a half hour outside, half hour inside regimen to dig out the car.
9:30 a.m. I’M LUCKY that my neighbors helped me with the digging.
11 a.m. Read the Times Union online: “Capital District Transportation Authority buses clogged the intersection of Central Avenue and Henry Johnson Boulevard, making it impossible for cars to get by.” That’s my route to work. I’M LUCKY I stayed home.