Latest estimates are saying 8-13 for Wichita; that's the NWS storm warning. Weather Channel is still saying 12-15, or at least they were this afternoon. Doesn't matter either way when it comes to that much -- I've seen tons of pictures this afternoon of store shelves stripped bare because people are hoarding groceries; no bread or milk to be found anywhere in the area, apparently. School districts are closing already, too -- there's probably fifty school districts across the state that have already shut down for tomorrow. No word on Wichita's school district or on [university], though, at least not yet. It doesn't matter anyhow; I don't have to go to campus tomorrow and if we get all that snow, open or closed, I wouldn't go in on Tuesday anyhow because there's no way I could get there. I ordered some pizza and put the car in the garage again this afternoon -- I'm holing up until I absolutely have to leave the house, and it's looking more and more like that's going to be Thursday at the earliest. The pizza guy said that the main roads here are mostly clear, but the less-traveled streets have just gotten worse due to freeze/thaw/refreeze cycles. My street is almost clear (it's dry on the sides with a huge line of thick ice/slush down the center of it), but it won't be like that for long, obviously.
The weather is just now beginning to move into the area -- it's supposed to start as ice/sleet and quickly turn over to snow around midnight or so, and last until Tuesday morning before it all pulls out. I can tell that it's moving in -- my allergies have gone from nothing this morning to nasty this evening. I am thankful I have enough food and other household necessities to where I won't have to worry about running out of anything until long after this stuff blows over.
Might want to wait on sending the box until this weather blows through both here AND there -- it'll more than likely get delayed in shipping if you send it too soon. I have a few Amazon orders for books and other stuff that have been delayed by four days or more because of last week's storm, and unless I get them tomorrow before the snow hits, they're likely to be delayed even longer.
Just read an update of the forecast -- everything's crazy. Weather stations in Topeka (2 hours north of here, the state capitol) are saying we could get 16-20 inches. West of us in Goodland, they're predicting 10-16 for us, if not a bit more. The Weather Channel is saying 6-10 for tomorrow alone, and 3-5 more tomorrow night (total: 9-15). NWS is saying 8-13. Wichita news stations are saying about the same. It could be worse than the last storm, about the same, or a bit less.
I'll let you know what happens...provided, of course, I'm able to keep power.
Love you, Mommy.
B
As I told Daisy a few minutes ago, after looking at a dizzying number of forecasts for the entire state, most of them agree on one thing: this area, including Newton and Wichita, is probably going to receive about 10 to 15 inches of snow in the span of 24 hours or so. Possibly more, possibly less, but the "10 to 15" figure is popping up on the majority of projection maps I've seen from a multitude of sources. Regardless, this puts it on par with, if not worse than, last week's storm.
After I sent this email to my mother about fifteen minutes ago, I went back to the local news channel, KAKE, to look at their list of closings. For schools alone, I counted 111 different districts/schools/colleges that have already shut down for tomorrow, including both Newton (USD 373) and Wichita (USD 259). Already. Every time I refresh the page, the list grows. As of yet, the university is not on that closings list -- I would've gotten an email from them if they had closed -- but Parker and I are both theorizing that it's only a matter of time. They've just closed all private schools in the past five minutes. We're currently trying to come up with a "friendly wager" of sorts about snowfall totals.
"I'm trying to think of something more interesting to risk than money," Parker said.
"You win, you get the blazer. You lose, [department chair] or [my officemate] gets it."
The sport coat I ordered from Amazon is ill-fitting. By "ill-fitting" I mean "cannot button it across my massive gut" and "my shoulders are too wide/arms are too long for this thing" and "Amazon clearly has a different definition of '2XL' than me." I've told Parker I'm going to bring it in to campus and let him see what he thinks; if he has a use for it and/or if he thinks it can be tailored, I'll probably just give it to him. It's a gorgeous sport coat -- it just doesn't fit me, really.
"Nah, we can do better than that. Needs more sting."
"And/or if I win you get me a sixer of Boulevard Wheat. Or something."
"Loser brings Krispy Kreme donuts next Tuesday?"
"Hmm...how many?"
"Six pack? Three for you, three for me?"
"Fair enough; I'll take that bet."
This is what Parker and I talk about in our off hours. Yes, seriously.
Parker announced that his side of the bet would be that we would get six inches or less of snow.
...what?
"Dude, that's a horrible bet," I told him. "You know I'm going to win that one."
"I say it's hype and that the storm underperforms!"
Okay; again, fair enough. Parker is an intelligent man, and if he wins the bet, I certainly don't mind getting a box of donuts on the way to campus next week.
Update: while we were discussing the terms of the bet, the university -- as well as about fifty other school districts -- closed for tomorrow. The vast majority of the state has shut down for tomorrow, even when the storm isn't going to really get going until late tomorrow afternoon (again, based on what I've seen).
"So here's the big question then," I asked Parker, "...if they're closing tomorrow, what's the likelihood they will again on Tuesday as well?"
"High. I think they're premature on tomorrow. Could've done a half day. Tuesday will be worse."
I'm inclined to agree. Could get bad before schools let out tomorrow (depending on who you believe, it's either going to start in the overnight tonight, tomorrow morning, or tomorrow afternoon), but apparently after the last storm, nobody's taking any chances. They're calling for nastiness? Shut it down. Shut it all down.
Anyway.
Here's the latest from KSN Channel 3 in Wichita -- the only station who was, previously, calling for this to be a somewhat lighter event than last time:
Tonight: Turning mostly cloudy, windy and cold with rain changing to snow. Trace to 6” possible NW of the turnpike with the heaviest W. Lo: 28 Wind: E/NE 15-30Uhh...
Tomorrow: Snow and blowing snow. Blizzard conditions at times! Mostly cloudy, extremely windy and colder. Another 3-10” possible for 3-16” totals Around 7” in Wichita. Hi: 35 Wind: NE 25-50
Tomorrow Night: Cloudy, extremely windy and cold. Snow and blowing snow. Blizzard conditions at times! Another 2-10” for 5-26” totals. Around 14” in Wichita. Lo: 23 Wind: NE/NW 25-50
So we could get anywhere between five inches...and twenty-six inches.
I really don't know how to respond to that, really, it's...interesting. That's a 21-inch swing there -- an ungodly amount of leeway for the storm to be less than 12 hours out at this point. KAKE Channel 10 is now calling for 4-10 in Wichita and my area, which is a much lower total than before, but still enough.
Basically, nobody knows what the hell is going to happen. Every local forecast, the NWS, and the Weather Channel all say something different. None of them can agree on anything, and there's no trusting anyone explicitly until all of it's actually coming down and can be measured.
It doesn't matter to me though, really -- as mentioned before, I'm not really planning to leave the house until Thursday if we get even the low end of that forecast here. With everything on the roads as-is, and with a 50-mile round trip, even if school is in session on Tuesday (and in all likelihood, it probably won't be), I can't get out in that unless everything gets cleaned up or melts fast. Very low-end of four inches? Possibly. I could possibly go to teach if the university is open. Do I want to risk it on Tuesday morning at 6:30 when I can't see well in the dark and on the roads, and when it may still be snowing like hell? Fuck no.
As mentioned above in the email to my mother, I ordered a big order of pizza this afternoon from Pizza Hut, and I have more than enough cigarettes, coffee, and other food/necessities to get me through the rest of the week. I've got books for comps ordered from Amazon, some of which will hopefully arrive tomorrow before the brunt of the storm hits, and I've got plenty of stuff to do. The car is in the garage and out of the weather, so if I get a snow-forced ten-day vacation from campus, I'm not necessarily concerned about it. I've been able to get some sleep and relaxation time for once, and I've made two different copies of my students' itinerary timelines -- one if I can't make it in on Tuesday, and one for the unlikely event that I can. Planning around snowstorms and the upcoming Spring Break (3/16 to 3/24) is crazy, and it basically cuts my instruction time for their second unit in half. Looks like I'll be cramming two days' worth of lessons into one class day several times over the next few weeks.
I heard someone mention earlier "what if the university cancels spring break because of snow days?" Yeah, I somehow doubt that will happen, ever. Students and faculty travel over that time. They leave town, they've made plans, etc. Last year, as you may remember, I flew to West Virginia over my break. Not to mention that it's the time all of us calculate our midterm grades -- students and faculty alike would get out the torches and pitchforks.
The box I mentioned in my email to my mother is the second box of my stuff left at the house in West Virginia from Christmas; while I've gotten the majority of it at this point, Mom's been looking for a box big enough to send the rest, and it's taken her a while. They've also been fighting off winter storms themselves almost every week for the past month or so, so there's never been a good time to send the rest of it. I told her to hold off because after this storm clears the area, it will (of course) move north and east, and at least part of it, or its remnants, will hit back home later this week. I do have those several Amazon shipments which have already been delayed, so there's no reason to have her send something else to me that may be delayed as well, especially if there's anything perishable in it (there usually is). That's why it's better to wait and see until this all blows through.
That's exactly what I'm going to do on the whole, really -- nobody is able to accurately predict anything even now, so I'm going to go to bed tonight as I normally would on a Sunday night, wake up in the morning, and see what's going on. I'm going to try to avoid any more prognosticating weather forecasts and/or updates from any news or other weather sources until it actually starts, which it should before I get up. I wouldn't say I get "excited," per se, but I am indeed interested in everything going on with some sort of morbid, obsessive fascination for some reason that I can't fully explain.
I did little today but eat and sit around the house -- and it felt wonderful. Yesterday, I spent many hours reading Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, two of the authors on my comps reading list, to reacquaint myself with their works. I'll be doing that a lot over the course of the next few weeks, and tomorrow as well is no exception. It appears I have nothing but extra reading and studying time on my hands, regardless of how bad the weather gets, and as Daisy so aptly put it, I should cherish it. I will be revising and adding here and there to my thesis as well, to get it ready for its final printed draft within the next three weeks or so. Who I've been reading at any time greatly inspires my work, so here's hoping that I'll have a good three or four new poems to add to it over the course of that time. I'd like to add many, many more, but it's all about what I've got time for -- and after I do get back to campus, I will be collecting students' papers and attending to much more busy-work than I had previously anticipated, so time is continually at a premium as the semester's deadlines get ever closer.
Daisy tells me not to worry too much about the comps, but she doesn't know just how important they are, or how difficult, because she's never had to take them herself. She and I had a very lengthy discussion about it last night, where I discussed with her what they actually entail and the types of questions one can expect. I told her that if I were to take the comprehensive exam right now, I'd probably do fair-to-middlin' on it, but I sincerely doubt I'd pass. I'd come close, more than likely, but I don't think I'd completely pass it. Until I'm confident that I could reasonably field most questions thrown at me by my director, I can't let my proverbial guard down, and must bury myself in reading and studying -- hence why I spent many hours yesterday in the throes of Whitman and Dickinson, and why I will do the same in the coming days and weeks with the likes of C.K. Williams, Sharon Olds, Allen Ginsberg, and most of the British and American modernists (such as T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats). I want to feel well-rounded, I want to get a sense of most of the authors' works and be able to discuss them and their philosophies/themes if asked. That takes, more than anything else, time and dedication. I have a little more than a month to prepare, and I'm confident that my preparations will be adequate.
Daisy herself, as mentioned in my last post, is sick with the flu. Or, at least, she thinks it's the flu -- she knows at the very least that she has a sinus infection, chills and a flushed complexion, and she feels like hell. I wish I were there in Omaha to take care of her. Through it all, though, she remains a trooper -- she applied for a few new jobs today, and I'm proud of her. Apparently PayPal, Google, and Yahoo all have big hubs in Omaha, so if I'm hard-up for anything else after graduation I can at least see what I can apply for with those companies, even though it may not necessarily be glamorous. As for Daisy, she's going to the doctor tomorrow if possible; she said she's calling them bright and early at 8AM to see if there's anything they can do for her, and she went to bed early tonight so that she could get some much-needed recuperative rest.
Also, I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but she was indeed able to get her ring resized, and they fixed the crack in the base of it as well. It is now comfortable for her to wear all the time, and she's much happier. I have made a note of her actual ring size so that when I purchase the wedding rings, I can get them without having to worry about the size being too small. I've actually found a few thus far that are really gorgeous, but haven't shown them to her yet -- that's way, way down the line at this point, and there's no reason to rush anything. I may just get them at some point and surprise her later.
On that note, folks, I head to bed. In the morning I will emerge from my slumber to see either a winter nightmare in progress or soon to occur. Regardless, I shall be here, safe and sound, in my warm home, with my warm kitties sleeping with me and my warm electric blanket turned on.
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