Friday, February 22, 2008

Dumped. Again

What a winter it's been, one snow storm after another since December. Normally, we don't get much snow in December at all -- we might have a dusting in time for Christmas -- this season, we had a good foot on the ground by Christmas, and it has continued unabated ever since. Today is just the latest storm, and it's particularly irksome, since dh is travelling in it.

Yes, the Powers That Be in Good Ol' DC decreed that Travel Must Go Forward, regardless of the probability of snow and travel delays, so this past week, dh has been in (of all places) Philadelphia. Our son lived in the Philly area for 2 1/2 years, and not once did my husband have travel in that area. Now that Chris has been home for a year, where does his father have to travel?! Go figure.

Having left the City of Brotherly Love at, what, 8:30 a.m.? -- he just walked in the door at 8:45 p.m. Sound miraculous? Not if you took the train, as dh did. He hates airline travel so much that he will actually wrestle with Defense Travel Service to get train travel approved -- as it turns out, it's a good thing he did, this time, since all the airports are closed and flights from elsewhere are delayed up the yinyang. But Amtrak made it through with, I think, only half an hour's delay. And if they had gotten stuck, at least he could have stretched out in his seat to sleep, not have had to make do with sleeping in a )@(#*$&%^! airport.

The worst part of the trip was getting from the train station to the house, because he had to wait for a cab for 45 minutes -- I do not drive, in this weather. But there's a cafe about two blocks from the train station, and he sat it out very happily, till the cabbie showed up and brought him home.

So all's well that ends well. But I am still ticked off. When dh was working for the Navy, they did not travel in the winter, period. Army, apparently, does not believe in such civility. Am I correct in my belief that Navy consistently wins the Army/Navy Football Game??

Meanwhile, there's a few inches of the white stuff out there -- six or so -- with more to come. Everyone I know is ready to hang the groundhog. Even me, and normally I love winter. I stopped loving it, this year, around mid-January. Come on, Mother Nature, February's almost over. We need at least a little warmth -- flowers, no, it's way too early for flowers, but a modification of air temperature, anyway.

And less -- much less -- of the white stuff, thankyouverymuch.