2019: The Polar Vortex Edition

Our schedules are frequently complicated. We only have one car and my part-time job requires a fair amount of travel. But our teaching schedules on campus are what we count on to ground us. They may change semester by semester, but they are pretty normal and that is something I don't take for granted as the rest of my life swirls about in a chaotic mess.

But this weather has thrown everything off. If you're luck enough to be somewhere that isn't the upper Midwest of the United States, we're in the middle of a weather snap that is getting relatively dire. Up until the first week of classes for the semester, we'd had a pretty mild winter. And then.

January 18 - 20 I was in Canada doing work for my part-time job. This had been planned for a little while, but right as Dr. BB was taking me to the airport two things happened. One, a lot of snow started falling. Two, he got a phone call that his uncle died.  I took off for Toronto, getting a connection in Chicago just as the snow started there.

University of Toronto-St. George campus is beautiful in the snow.

Week 1 of the Semester
On the 21st, I flew back to Madison (flights were delayed the entire time because of weather) in time for Dr. BB to pick me to take me straight to Iowa for the visitation. Then Dr. BB stayed in Iowa for the actual funeral and I came home. He ended up getting stranded in Iowa because of a freak ice storm while I was home in Wisconsin shoveling us out from five inches of snow.  He cancelled classes on the 22nd and 23rd and eventually came home on the 23rd. Then we had some degree of normalcy over the weekend (although we had to go to "celebration of life" thing for a colleague of ours who died in December), although it really did snow at least twelve inches altogether.

Week 2 of the Semester
The polar vortex strikes us. The temperatures were below zero and one night there was a recorded -50 with wind chill.  The University actually cancelled all activities from Tuesday evening through Friday morning. I taught on Tuesday and that was it. Meanwhile, I'm trying to accomplish two life goals: get an oil change for the car and get to a follow-up appointment with my eye doctor about contacts.  Both are postponed more than once. It's dangerous to leave the house. That weekend we return to Iowa for a family birthday party AND go to the visitation for a mentor Dr. BB had in high school. Over the weekend it gets up into the 40s and all that snow starts melting, leaving open puddles everywhere.

Week 3 of the Semester
Monday and Tuesday are normal until we get home from class on Tuesday. Ice starts raining from the sky.  Dr. BB goes into class on Wednesday while I stayed home and spent hours trying to get the ice up from the driveway so the car can get in the garage. It continues to rain ice on Wednesday evening and we both end up cancelling office hours and classes today because it's not safe for us to drive and it's certainly not safe for all of our students to drive.

Wrap-up
I've actually taught four of the six teaching days I've had. I've shoveled snow and ice. We've been to three wakes. I'm full of anxiety.  2019 has been challenging for me so far.