(no subject)

[the_rck]

School has officially been canceled for tomorrow. I really hope they're back to school Thursday because I arranged for the A-Ride to pick us up from the school. If there's no school, we'll have to wait for the cab outside the school, and that will be really miserable, especially if the cab comes late.

The message from the school said that the roads in 'the outlying areas' are still impassable and that the cold temperatures are still a concern for kids walking to school or waiting at bus stops. There was also mention that they weren't sure the diesel buses could run under these circumstances.

Cordelia is disappointed, and so am I. I'm looking forward to writing time, and Cordelia is bored and lonely. At least I can be home with her. We're not scrambling to find daycare for her on very little notice.

We have several errands to run. I don't know when they'll happen. I've been trying to talk to Scott about them via chat and e-mail, but he just ignores that stuff a lot of the time. I don't want to bring it up in front of Cordelia because she doesn't see why we can't just do it now. Unfortunately, the errands are scattered all over town. They don't cluster neatly.

Comments

[untonuggan]

Hope you get writing time soon!

[the_rck]

I'm hoping for Friday. Thursday is always too busy for writing.

Of course, Cordelia has a friend over today, so she's not in the living room watching tv. Maybe I can manage something today.

[chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com]

I know having a fidgety kid all day can be hard for both you and the kid, but trust me, I've been through standing on a bus stop in these temperatures for a bus I knew wasn't going to come, (you are right, they won't run in really cold temperatures, especially if the maintenance is shoddy. Don't know what your school system is like but here I'm amazed we don't see more busted down buses, priority all goes to sports. ) but we had to wait until 8;30 anyway, an hour of standing outside. A bunch of us got behind some bushes to get out of the wind and I fell asleep and woke up three days later in the ICU, I had gone into a hypothermic coma. The kids left me there, and the neighbor found me when she went to her newspaper. I nearly lost my earlobes and a couple of toes and wound up shedding some skin on my waist and back from frostbite. I was bundled to the teeth too, I couldn't have possible worn more than I was. I'm glad to see that they keep the kids home from school in this mess.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

HOLY COW that is scary!!!!! I am glad you're still alive!!!

[chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com]

it was horrible, and one of the reasons why I advocate taking kids of out school in this weather so very strongly, a lot of people don't realize that in high winds you can lose massive amounts of body heat rapidly, they think that as long as you "layer" and "bundle up" you'll be okay. If it's just cold, that may be the case, but not when there are strong winds.

After the police talked to the other kids on the bus stop (there was some ass chewing for not getting an adult when I didn't wake up and instead leaving me there) they figured it had only taken about 15 minutes for me to go into the coma. Frankly the doctors were amazed I came out of it with as little damage as I did, and skin grafts helped save a lot of problems, but also created others, and they are horrible to go through. (imagine laying down on your stomach as someone peels the skin off your back like you'd skin an animal before cooking it. It's horrifying.). I was wearing a turtleneck, long underwear, a heavy sweater, a jogging jacket, a down coat, scarf, two pairs of gloves (thin gloves with snow glove over them) long underwear pants, a heavy pair of jeans, a couple pair of socks and hiking boots. I was shivering by the time I'd gotten 2 blocks down the street.

If it's below 0 with a wind chill, don't be exposed to the wind (being in a car is okay, or some kind of wind blocking shelter) for more than 10 minutes. Even if you keep moving (sitting down was a mistake on my part, but I was a high schooler, what did I know?) 10 minutes can put many people at risk, especially if you have other health issues.

[the_rck]

Cordelia has a friend over today, and they want to go sledding. I'm having to play the heavy and say no because the wind chill is still -20. They have no concept of how cold that is. I might be willing to let them out in the back yard for long enough to build a snowman, but sledding involves trekking over to the science and nature center and staying out for at least half an hour. Not going to happen unless it warms up.

[chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com]

ugh, yeah, way to cold for sledding, though pulling off a snowman (if the snow isn't to dry) might be a reasonable time period, especially if they build near the house blocking the wind and have lots of hot cocoa to warm up after! That sounds like fun :D It's cool that she's got kids her age that live close enough to come over and play, I was the only kid in my neighborhood for so long

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

Chorus of Chaos, I don't know your name, but I thought of you this morning when I drove my teenager to the schoolbus stop in -0.5 degree weather.

[chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com]

Most people call me Rhiannon, my middle name, as there were something like 14 girls named Michelle in my school year. I didn't want to be referred to as Michelle 7!

It's finally warmed up here a bit (at least it's above zero) I hope it gets warmer where you are soon!!

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

I'm in Ann Arbor, where it's now in the low 20s, so happily it is warmer here now too.

Being Michelle #7 would stink. I once ran across a website that had been created by a zillion women named Jennifer who were born in the 1970s and were unhappy about being among so many Jennifers. :-S

[the_rck]

That's scary!

Our buses are generally in good shape, but they're all diesel, so really cold weather means they don't run.

I am glad that they cancel school promptly if the buses can't run. It's been good the last few days that they've canceled the day before. Usually, the phone call comes at 5 a.m. Of course, if they cancel tomorrow, it will be at 5 a.m. They're really hoping things will be clear enough and warm enough tomorrow.

[chorus-of-chaos.livejournal.com]

I know the schools get funding based on how many kids in school XX days and they need that, I think that had a lot to do with what happened to me. I believe that was the winter of 78 which is still a record setting ice/sleet/snow/blizzard year for Indiana, and they'd already had so many kids not get to school because of late/broken down buses so they weren't closing school when they should have. I made the news and there was a lot of stink about the whole thing. I think they wound up tacking an extra week on to the end of the school year if I remember correctly (as if kids get anything done in the last week of school but empty out there lockers and make plans for summer) It was long enough ago and a miserable enough experience I just pushed a lot of it out of my head other than developing a great hatred of being cold and learning a lot about hypothermia and skin grafts.

Wow, I can't imagine them trying to call everyone the morning of, even with today's tech. Well, my high school had 3,000 students in it, your school is probably smaller! We had to listen to the radio the morning off, and if it wasn't on the radio then you had to tromp down there and wait until 8:30, even though we knew our bus driver would not even attempt it. Cop cars would random roll by the bus stops to make sure kids were there. (They should have been giving us rides to school!)

[the_rck]

Around here, state funding for schools is determined by how many students are in school on a couple of specific days, student count days. A bad cold can really hurt a school's funding if it has many kids out on one of those days. I'd have to check my calendar to be sure, but I think one day is in October and the other is in February.

I know they call people in waves. Usually, they call Scott's cell phone first and then, about ten minutes later, call mine. And it's not the specific school doing the calling. It's the school district, so there are thousands of calls going out. I know they start with the high school parents because those are the kids who would have to be out the door first.