2789 Thirty-six hellish hours

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Folks who rejoice that "The system works!" are usually referring to another's parking ticket, not their own.

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Heavy wet snow Tuesday. Too heavy for the snowthrower, so I had no choice but to call the plow guy. He said that even though it hadn't stopped yet, he'd have to plow every seven inches or so, because it was so heavy. It snowed through to Wednesday early afternoon, about 15" of heavy wet, so that meant two plowings, at $55 each. Yeouch!

I hate winter.

The heavy soggy wet snow took down trees (including several large branches in my yard, one across the driveway), so we lost power at about 1 am Wednesday. That means no lights, heat, phone, water, internet. The power didn't come back on until about noon today, Thursday. By this morning the temp in the house was 51, which is pretty good, actually.

As if that weren't bad enough, there's the saga of the Morocco trip. The organizer had told us via an email two weeks ago that we would have a meeting with the tour guide on the 24th, which was last night, meeting place TBD. I had sent her at least two emails over the past week asking where, please, since if it's in NYC I'll need to plan ahead. As of Tuesday morning, still no response. So Tuesday morning I sent her a stern note, adding that I was beginning to have misgivings about this whole venture. Tuesday afternoon she sent a note to all of us that we would be meeting at 7 pm Wednesday at a particular Moroccan restaurant on Bowery.

I fired off a note to The Man asking him if it would be better for me to take the train and subway, or to drive. I was worried about parking. He advised driving, because then I wouldn't be on the subway late at night. Turns out that if you Google "parking NYC", you can get not only maps of licensed parking lots and garages, you can make a reservation and lock in the charges. I spent most of Tuesday evening doing the research.

Come Wednesday morning, no power, no internet. Glad I'd got the info the night before. Washed the best I could with baby wipes. Located an outfit in the walkin closet by flashlight. I left the house at 3:45 pm, drove south through snow, then rain, then heavy fog, the first dry road was the Sprain Parkway. Rush hour. GPS found the garage at 6:30, two blocks from restaurant. 2 hour and 45 minute drive in miserable conditions.

Looked for organizer in the restaurant. Nope. Lots of people walked up to me and introduced themselves, very strange - surprise, the whole restaurant had been hired for an AOL presentation, presence by invitation only. I just happened to arrive before the person with the invitee list got set up and was stopping people at the door. 7:15, still no one from the Morocco group - not that I'd recognize anyone anyway. 7:30 I asked the list-woman at the door if anyone else had tried to get in, asking for the organizer. She said yes, that one woman had asked for a Danielle, something about a meeting, and seemed upset.

So I left and went home. Thoroughly pissed. 2 hour drive home. Electricity still off. I should have been able to make it up the driveway, but the plow guy had plowed too far to the left, off the pavement and into the lawn, and I got stuck in the mud! Rain on top of snow slop and horribly chewed up lawn equals mud. Rocked the car out, chewing up lawn more. Walked up 300' driveway in the rain, leaving car at bottom.

Snowing again this morning. Huge fat flakes that quickly covered the front of the car as I was cleaning off the back. I'd packed up the laptop intending to head for Piper's office, find out what happened to the meeting. The village seems to always have power, no matter what. I parked right in front of his office. The office was dark and locked, but he had given me a key a year or two ago, on another power outage occasion. I left the car running and my purse in the car, while I checked whether the key still worked - his door had been replaced recently, and I wasn't sure whether the lock had been changed, too.

Here's where habit can hurt. I NEVER lock my car unless I actually have the keys in my hand, and I taught Daughter the same rule. ALWAYS lock the car with the hand holding the key. So I locked the car door with the hand holding the key. The office key.

Yes, I do have a spare car key. In my purse. In the running car. And, oh, yeah, the key didn't work in the new office door.

Lady in the liquor store called the police for me. I stood outside in the clumps of falling snow waiting. He came with his slim-jim and wiped the snow off the side windows to see where the lock posts were, and that's when I discovered that the back driver's side door was unlocked. Embarrassment supreme. I hugged the cop.

He had to take a report anyway, but the snow was falling fast, so we stepped into the pedestrian alley next to Piper's office, but the snow was falling there, too, so we stepped into a recessed rear doorway in the alley, where he wrote down all the info. Only later did it occur to me that anyone who had seen me hug him in the street might wonder what I was bribing him with back there in the alley, to avoid a ticket or something.

Back home, not without further insult. As I was walking up the driveway, a huge clump of soggy snow fell off a branch right on the top of my head, and down my neck. Electricity came on a few minutes after I got home.

Turns out the organizer had sent an email canceling the meeting at 4:40 pm, 45 minutes after I had left the house to drive to the city. The reason? The tour guy wasn't able to make it in from NJ because of the weather. It was raining!!! in NJ! Just rain! I fired off a note to her about my trip in, and told her that her tour guide was a wimp! Haven't heard from her in response, which doesn't surprise me.

Now, this woman is a professional event organizer. She's got a lot going on, but she's not very professional.
a) She didn't check with the restaurant beforehand to ensure that we could meet there.
b) When she sent the cancellation email, she should have requested an acknowledgment that the message had been read.
c) Having been unsure we had read the email, she should have been AT the restaurant at the appointed time anyway, just to make sure, in case someone showed up,
d) or at the very least, she should have called the restaurant at or just before 7 pm to ask them to page any of us and pass us the message.

I intensely dislike this woman already, and I don't even know her. She's sloppy. If she were my employee, I'd fire her.

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The one piece of good luck was that I had ordered one of those lights you wear on your forehead from Woot.com, and it arrived in Tuesday's mail. Those things are great! I even used it to do crosswords in bed Wednesday night.
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