Wish List

The ice storm combined with all of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania descending on Dallas for the Super Bowl totally screwed up my life yesterday.  While I had visions of hiding from the ice, sipping hot chocolate and playing games with my family, all manner of other mess collaborated to sabotage my "vacation day" (as I spent one of them trying to avoid the freaking roads) and keep me in a constant state of panic/worry/anger/fear/tears.

Apparently, for a bunch of reasons that didn't translate into anything sensible to me, there was not enough electricity to go around yesterday.  So, the great state of Texas initiated rolling blackouts.  They were supposed to last for 15-45 minutes (unless you were at Cowboys' Stadium, where you got a pass on the black-out, but if you were in a hospital giving birth to a newborn, or on a Dart train trying to stay off the icy roads - no such luck - I digress).  I must admit, the first black-out lasted 45 minutes, and my power was restored as promised........for, quite literally, 30 seconds.  It was then shut off again and remained off for approximately 5.5 hours.

The very last thing I wanted to do was load Silas into a car and drive anywhere, but my choices were getting down to risking the mile drive to a friends' or exposing him to increasingly frigid temperatures.  So, bundle up and load up we did.  We spent the black out chatting with friends and watching the kids play until we received word that our side of town was up and running once more.  The day was back on track. 

Or so I thought.  While I was in the middle of trying to protect my child from this freakishly-annoying storm, a crisis was a-brewin' at work.  Upon my return to our re-electrified home, I was able to check emails, and I was alerted to the crisis.  As I had already spent enough time on the roads to know I had no desire to drive all the way to the office, I tried to delay taking action, shut off my computer, took a nap, awoke to check my emails and learned that my effort to delay was rebuffed.

Having no other options, back out on the ice we went - stopping to drop Silas off so as not to subject him to our near run-in with a retaining wall.

When all was said and done, we made it back home at 11:15 last night, and Silas practically begged us to put him to bed.  

My birthday is fast approaching, and I am putting lottery tickets and a trip to some place tropical on my wish list.  Feel free to combine forces to make it happen.