Monday I came to work, rushed around being busy, and then took off at around 4:30 for sunny Upstate New York to visit Lake Nasty, and to be part of a public availability session. We got back on Wednesday night, and it really wasn’t a bad trip at all. Saw some people, chatted with the client, etc. etc.
While we visiting Lake Nasty it was very snowy. Snowy and cold. It was fun, I do kind of love the winter weather (and even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to complain, because of the number of people in my family who work outdoors. In the winter. And often, at night, or in very poor conditions.) and have a perverse (I hear) joy in tromping around in the cold, safely bundled up, warm and snug in my boots and 4 feet of snow. Because there was at least 4 feet of snow on the ground. I mean, I only sunk in to above my knees, but I think there was a bunch under my feet, too. But it was fun.
As we were driving home, though, (and honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I was concerned it would be a disaster given other driving experiences with a Certain Someone during dry road conditions) I did some thinking about patience. It’s hard to be patient these days when it’s desirable to drive super fast and get where you’re going as fast as you can and to always do things when you want to and to have access to information and people when you first think you’ll need it.
But in winter weather, you really have to be patient. I was antsy, at the beginning of our drive, and thought for sure we could go a little faster. But as we went down the highway we passed at least 6 cars on the side of the road. Some were just beat up, others were flipped, and resting on their sides. A couple of cars were on their roofs. There were 2 jackknifed tractor trailers, and one of them was in really bad shape, facing the wrong direction with a broken off nose. There was a third tractor trailer that sliced through a guard rail like it was butter, and who had obviously bailed off of the road when he saw the cars in front of him collide. I was concerned for the people in the cars, but my volunteer EMT coworker said he didn’t see any of the typical signs of injury – you know, busted up windows, jaws of death marks, etc.
This weekend, I’m going to go to some anti-war protests/rallys. It should be interesting. I don’t want to get arrested, but, I shouldn’t if I stay on the sidewalks, I think. And hopefully there won’t be any tear gas involved. Hmm.
There have been terror alerts all over the place. I can’t figure out what’s going on, because the US just upgraded to level orange this week, and because NYC has been at level orange for like 2 years, I don’t know why there are so many more cops around. Operation Hercules, they call it, and it involves body armor and machine guns. It makes me nervous. They said there is a very very high chance of terrible things happening this week. Well, we’re almost through it. I hope! Penn station is on fire right now, but I think it’s just a restaurant. There are sirens everywhere. It’s loud and ugly.
I was talking to our client this week on the trip back and he asked if my folks were nervous about me being here. If they are, they haven’t said anything to me – but I told him they weren’t, and that we’d kind of talked about it before, and that it was kind of a “living in fear is no way to live†consensus. Also, bad stuff happens everywhere. There are more people here, which makes us more of a target, but it could happen anywhere.
