It's The Most Irritating Time Of The Year

I got up this morning, took a shower, got dressed, and then started the car and came back into the house while I waited for the car to warm up.
That was when it occurred to me that I should call the Inclement Weather Hotline at work.
The recording said that we were open, but also went on to say that our office follows the status of the Federal Government, and gave a Web site that shows the status.
I checked it and found that it said that Federal agencies in the DC area were closed.
At that point I decided to check my mail, and saw that HR had sent out an e-mail after 9:00 last night saying that we were closed today.
*Sigh*
In fairness to me, it honestly seemed like 30 hours would be more than enough time to adequately clear the roads in order to allow transportation to resume as usual, even allowing for completely inept road crews.
But whatever.
Didn’t really miss much at work today anyway, as the morning (after my conference call) was going to be taken up by having a holiday brunch with the rest of my team while we watched a movie, followed by a one hour break, followed by a four hour long all hands meeting.
Still, I would have liked to have known that I could sleep in when I went to bed last night.
I tried going back to bed, but was soon awakened by my cell phone buzzing to remind me about a conference call I had at 9, so I got up and dialed in.
After that I spent a while sitting around not doing much in particular, then took a nap a little after 11.
While I was napping I kept dreaming that I’d woken up, eventually realizing that, I was, in fact, still asleep and just dreaming, at which point I would wake up…until I eventually realized that, nope, still asleep and dreaming.
I’m assuming that when I woke up a bit after 1 I really did wake up, if only because this time around I’m not finding myself eating a restaurant that I eat at all of the time and where a cute waitress named, of all things, Star, who very obviously likes me works.
After all, if my recollections of the waking world are correct, there is no restaurant I eat at all of the time – not counting the café at work – and there is no cute girl named Star, or named anything for that matter, who likes me, obviously or otherwise.
So I’m thinking it’s a pretty safe bet that I’m awake.
Oh well.
Sometime after my nap I noted that, thanks to the unplanned extra day of being at home and my desire to get the hell out of Target right now on Friday, I was running short on Vitamin Water, so I decided to walk to the nearby corner store to pick some up.
After I got to the cross street, though, I discovered that while residents are required to clear their sidewalks, the city apparently doesn’t require the same of itself, and I wasn’t about to walk on wet streets covered with slush and Northern Virginia drivers.
Still, I was curious to see how bad it was out there, so I got in the car and ventured forth. I learned that the roads were still in decent shape and that the people on them were still morons.
Evidently the entire population went through the year’s worth of provisions they stocked up on three days ago and was out in force to restock.
Of course, to be fair, they did have to put up with their kids being home, so I guess I can’t blame them for wanting to get out of the house.
I did, surprisingly, see signs of some additional effort being put forth to clear the roads, which is a switch from the more typical “Give it one half-assed pass and then let nature take care of it” approach I usually see.
After all, not all of my ire is directed at the panicky wimpiness of the common folk; I’m also annoyed at the ill-equipped and clearly inexperienced people responsible for getting things moving again.
Seriously, Loudoun County is one of the most affluent places in the country; we really ought to be able to afford top-notch road crews.
As I was leaving Target I caught a bit of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” on the in-store music system, and that was stuck in my head for the entire ten minutes it took me just to get out of the parking lot, which only added fuel to the fire of my impotent rage.
So, yeah.

Snow Day? More Like D'oh Day

It was snowing pretty heavily when I went to bed last night, and there was a winter storm warning in effect.
I woke up sometime in the middle of the night, looked out the window and saw that it had stopped snowing and there really hadn't been that much accumulation.
Sometime later I was vaguely aware of the wind rattling the windows.
When my alarm went off I got up, looked out and saw that quite a bit more snow had fallen and that it was still coming down pretty hard.
So I called the inclement weather hotline at work. Open as usual. *Sigh*
I gave it a few minutes and called again. Open as usual.
I considered my options. My street hadn't been plowed, and no one else had made any effort at moving, so no trail had been blazed.
Eventually I decided to call my boss to see if she'd be okay with me working from home. I got her voicemail.
After a while some intrepid soul blazed a trail on the street, and, since the hotline still said "Open as usual," and I hadn't heard back from my boss, I dusted off the car, started it up, showered, dressed, and made the slow, treacherous journey in to work.
By the time I got in, the hotline said we were on a two hour delay, and my boss had e-mailed everyone saying that she was working from home and encouraged the rest of us to do the same.
D'oh.
Today's message from Starro the Star Conqueror is "Should have waited, human!"