Greenstorm's Journal

Went in to work. Got the flu shot (they bring someone in to give it once a year). It snowed 3". Did some work. Overheard a coworker on a hiring panel making mean and kinda prejudicial comments about the applicants. Was given a slice of cake. Learned that since our union didn't negotiate to pay the new higher professional fees (nor cost of living upgrade) I'll be paying $80 this year for the privilege of working, and if I become a full professional it'll be more like $200 per year. Got scent bombed in the supply closet. Got scent bombed in the bathroom. Came home at lunch to work from home through 3" of snow. Stopped and picked up a freezer lasagne I don't have money for because I'll be out in wet snow all evening and don't want to cook. Stopped to pick up a package for Tucker he asked me to pick up, but because he didn't tell them I was coming to pick it up they wouldn't give it to me. Went around the first car of the year that had spun out and was kinda in the ditch in the 50km strip of the highway downtown. Got home, by now there was 4" of snow. Turned up the stove so I can clean out the chimney tonight/tomorrow morning.

Will work from home this afternoon, go out into the wet snow to pick up sticks and do a first manual pass on the driveway at the part that has all the willow twigs, come in and sweep the chimney, eat lasagne, shower, and go to bed.

At the end of last week some folks from Vancouver and the Island came up for the weekend-- it had been a couple years since I'd seen them. They had come up previously when Thea was little and before I got Avallu, so that would have been late summer 2017. I drove in to pick them up from the airport in the city and we spent some time eating, petting animals, walking along the lake looking for rocks, and chatting before I drove them back Sunday. We went in a couple hours early to have lunch in town before their flight.

Well, as I got into town the truck started flashing a ton of lights: ABS & traction control, 4Hi, & 4Lo. I got us to the restaurant and they went in while I ran the codes. At this point I hadn't tried to do anything like go into 4hi, the flashing had all just started on its own. Well, I turned 4hi off and on again, turned the truck off and on again, and rocked back and forth a couple inches. That part stopped flashing. The code the engine was giving me was for a rear speed sensor. That wheel looked fine, the code cleared and didn't come back. For awhile I was looking into a cab to the airport from the restaurant for folks and a hotel room in the city because I didn't want to get stranded. In the end, because the codes didn't come back and the ABS appeared to be working, I drove folks up to the airport and then myself and Tucker back home in the twilight/dark. We skipped our normal shopping because I was just done for the day: when we got home after that last hour of driving in the dark and snow I went straight to bed and fell asleep.

Turns out that was the right call because this morning we woke up with several inches of snow on the ground and maybe 14" total falling throughout the morning/afternoon. I am so glad I did not have to drive home in that, especially in a vehicle I don't trust.

Turns out that snow is the northern tip of a ton of rain falling on the south coast that's taken out all highway access: basically the umbilicus that connects the interior to the rest of the province and to Canada. A big snow closed these same highways in 2015 for five days but this is a lot more structural damage than snow. Thoughts: Very Happy my friends did not drive up here, concerned to see if Josh can get up at the end of the week, very curious to see what grocery stores do in the next little while. Also this will probably foil my 4th attempt at getting a bank card by mail, so there's that. There are some pretty spectacular pictures of the Coqihalla (highway 5), highway 99, and highway 7 washouts. Apparently there are a couple hundred folks stuck between slides and they're trying to evacuate them through to the nearest town, which itself doesn't have power. I'm feeling pretty lucky with a full pantry and a generator (though no gas for the generator and I need to replace the fuel in the snowblower since it's been sitting which has meant a lot of shovelling).

Exciting times. I'm glad mom lives on a boat, though she said a random boat looked like it was lifted from anchor by the flooding and drifting towards her dock.

After Josh's (hopeful) visit next week is Tucker's birthday, when I'm looking forward to making tasty food appear and watching movies and snuggling. Downtime stuff. It feels like winter has hit pretty hard and I'm ready to hibernate awhile with some good tea, no-cook charcuterie platters, and a book or two.

I live somewhere cold and reasonably wet. Our occasional extreme low (not to long ago the regular low) in winter is sort of -40 (which is both Celsius and Ferenheit, it's where the streams cross). We get maybe 3m of snow falling over the course of a winter, which is maybe 1m of accumulation at the height of winter. Snow is much more variable than rain, of course, with density and thus volume fluctuating wildly. Still, what I'm trying to say is that there's white stuff on the ground for six months.

We're connected by a few ribbons of pavement. There are groceries in town, gas stations, an insurance agent and a dentist. There's a dollar store and a department store and an auto parts store, two mechanics and two hardware stores. There is a medical clinic. Prices in general are higher here but it's possible to order in what can't be bought in town and to not leave much. Most people drive into the bigger city pretty frequently though: there are bigger stores, variety in stores, bulk discounts, a movie theatre, restaurants, bank branches, optometrists and orthodontists and physiotherapists. Few people out here are strangers to driving in winter conditions. They (we?) are used to navigating roads that are marked by two dark tire strips in a flat white expanse, sorta guessing where lanes are when the plough hasn't gone by yet, taking it easy and slow when the roads are slippery.

Or we're supposed to be.

Thing is, a vehicle with snow tires in -20 handles basically normally. The snow/ice is cold enough to either blow off the road or stick to it like more concrete. Winter tire substance is sticky at low temperatures, unlike summer tires, and so it adheres to the road much like summer tires do to a summer road. It's pretty reasonable, especially if you choose to drive in the brief window of daylight.

In the shoulder seasons snow is wet and slippery, half-frozen. Not everyone has their snow tires on yet and snow tires aren't entirely built for water over melting ice anyhow. Everyone has seemingly forgotten how to drive in this, which is fair: it's only for a total of maybe two months a year. This morning it snowed here; in the city it rained-then-froze, which is black ice, and then snowed overtop. Here was sloppy driving to work and I got to play with the Tundra's 4hi since I won't have my winters on till Saturday. In the city was a ten car pile-up and closing down a major highway intersection (the city is the crossroads of the two highways up here, one of which runs north-south and the other which runs east-west).

The first couple years I drove 20km to work and 20km back and was pretty nervous around this time of year. It's the sort of weather when my rollover accident happened and I'm both a relatively new driver and relatively new up north. Then I moved workplaces and also it was covid so I had a shorter drive when I drove in at all. Today I came in for the first time in awhile because work is offering a free flu shot. Turns out the nurse administering the shots is coming in from the city.

We'll see if she shows. Meanwhile I'm here in the office, wearing my fancy opal ring with the leaf on it, looking out the window at the light skim of snow over everything and the sun rising over the lake.

More like sleet. Wet, obscuring, doesn't seem to stick. It's chilly. I want my chimney fixed. Still, it held off pretty late this year.