People Are Scaring Me

 

The weather people have gone rogue.  I listen to weather reports.  Are they just trying to scare me?  I check the internet.  They're even more scary.  Weather like I don't ever remember.  So what?  Why would this be scary?

Mostly I think we may get a foot of snow.  And maybe sleet.  But some reports are actually calling for three feet of snow.  Well, that would mean being snowbound.  For how long?  The facts are, last year when there was a situation with snow, the county came out and plowed it off the road.  After a few days.  Will they do that this time?  We'll see.  The scary part is the amount of snow.  Two days of heavy snow.  Watching the weather stations, eventually they admit they just don't know.  Will it be just a problem for a couple of days?  Or a couple of weeks?  Will it be snow or snow and sleet?  Is this an ice storm?  I guess what I'm nervous about is the power going out.  The good news is that the living room is heated with a propane heater.  And there is a bed in the living room.  When Mom died, for some reason there were those who believed that all the living room furniture should be throw away, and hauled my beautiful recliner out to a mega dumpster.  Also my DVR player and TV.  It was gut wrenching.   Why didn't I stop it?  I was afraid.  They left one recliner because I was sitting in it and refused to move.  They wanted to take the bed in the living room.  Why was there a bed in the living room?  Mom slept there because the propane heater kept that room warm.  The other rooms aren't heated.  So I put up more resistance over the bed, but really, I didn't want any of the furniture thrown away.  I think there was some luny thinking going on when my mother died.  Also, not realizing that I actually own the house, not my mother.  The recliner had been a special gift from her to me.  She had gone to the furniture store with me to select it.  The bed was something I bought a few months ago, mostly thinking at the time that is would be a nice place for a visitor to sleep sometime.  It folds up into an ottoman, and it had a matching cover that was disposed of when the living room was being "decluttered" of furniture and TVs.  

But, thanks to Jesus, the bed and one recliner are still there.  In the name of decluttering the living room, a six foot metal shelf had been rolled in, which had been used to put laundry on, and had been on the other side of the hall from the washing machine.  I haven't been able to move it back because it's too heavy.  Someday I'll sort it out I hope.  David had helped to create all this chaos without my consent, believing that for some reason I wanted my laundry shelf in the living room, and all the living room furniture thrown away.

Anyway, my emergency bed was not thrown away and is in the living room where the only heat is.  It's a good thing because the temperatures are going down into the teens and not forecast to get above freezing for 10 days.  And there are forecasts of a whole lot of snow.  A blizzard.  Some forecast say three feet of snow, or maybe snow and sleet, which will probably be there until February.  

So I have a big propane heater and a bed in the living room.  I have a lot of canned food and a gas stove.  I wanted a gas stove because of this possibility.  Am I frightened?  A little, but I have a big sheepskin coat also, which I also bought for this kind of scenario.  

Probably the biggest fear is that in these kinds of storms the power goes out, usually for four or five days.  Also, they may or may not plow the road.  I don't live in a city.  I live in a rural area.  A lot of snow is not too terrible if the roads are plowed and one can go buy food or whatever, but this is going to be a lot of snow and the backup plans are iffy.  No power, snowbound, sitting in the living room in a sheepskin coat in the dark.  It's not fun.  

So is this catastrophic?  I would say it's going to be stormy weather for a while.  I'm probably going to survive.  That's about it.  Am I frightened.  Honestly, yes.  It's made me very jittery.  I'll leave the faucet on so hopefully the pipes don't freeze.  Yikes.  

One thing that doesn't occur to a lot of people is that these storms can be dangerous in a place that is not set up to handle winter weather.  In Texas, probably about fifteen years ago, there was an ice storm over a large area that lasted about a week.  When it was over, around 75 people were found who had frozen to death due to the storm.  These storms are not something that happens very often and there's no plan.  People rely on electric heating, and the power grid goes down.  I think that's what happened in Texas.