A Kat and a Seattle Snowman

And the forecast is for more snow... way more!

I'll start really enjoying this once Tom gets home (he left over an hour ago on a commute that normally takes 10 minutes -- and he forgot to take his cell phone this morning!), once I hear from Elisabeth (she drove from our town into Seattle this afternoon and I haven't heard from her since), and once Peter gets home from a work shift that ends at 9 PM (it's now 7)... though he has a 4-wheel drive so I'm not quite as concerned about him.

I inched home from some errands on very icy roads this afternoon, caught in a sudden, very isolated storm. Seattle drivers are used to rain, but snow completely throws us! And the fact that it's coming so early in the season is very disconcerting -- global warming and all.

How's YOUR weather?

Addendum: Almost two hours after he left work, Tom called from a grocery store in town (about 6 miles from our house), saying he's heading out to walk home in the snow because his truck was sliding everywhere on the ice and there's no way he'd make it up and down the hills between there and our house. According to the news and the local police department, he won't be alone. It seems that, unless there are injuries, people are being adviced to just abandon their vehicles and try to get a hotel room or an alternate method of getting home. (The freeways, it seems, are filled with abandoned cars and accidents.) When he called from the store -- what a day to forget his cell... grrrrr! -- I begged him to stop at TJ Maxx in the same shopping center to buy a heavy coat, but he's stubborn and says just the walking will keep him warm. I think I'll have a hot toddy ready for him when he walks in the door, poor man!

Elisabeth called from her home in Seattle. She got home just before the storm hit there, is fine and warm and loving the snow. Having been at Cal for the past four winters, she's missed this and is enjoying the excitement.

Aleks and Kat are home, thank goodness. They're relatively new drivers, so once they drove home from school I insisted that they stay. Kat normally volunteers at the hospital on Mondays and has basketball practice on Monday nights. No way! Good thing neither of them were scheduled to work today!

Peter's still at work, 5 miles away. I'm gonna assume he'll be fine. He's one of those resourceful guys who would be fine in a blizzard with just a t-shirt and a Kit-Kat bar. He'll figure it out... but I'll call, just to check -- mommy that I am!

Addendum to the addendum (Blogger, why don't my hard returns work?!): Tom walked in the door long before I expected him. Turns out that about a mile into his winter trek, a woman known only as "Rose" pulled over and offered Tom a ride! Now there's testament to both how severe this storm is and to how completely harmless my husband looks (and is) -- a lone woman picks him up on a dark snowy road and feel perfectly safe!

And now I'm gonna send an e-mail to the local paper, thanking this unknown woman. Sometimes the kindness of strangers puts a lump in my throat.