A Special kind of Monday

So there is a blizzard happening here in Indiana/Michigan.  We were driving home from snowmobiling on Saturday when it started.  We got home at 8:30 pm Sat driving much of the way at or below 40 mph on the freeway because conditions were so bad.  At 8:30 pm there was 6 inches of snow on the porch. We shoveled it mostly for the exercise because we’d been in the truck for 10 hours. Woke up Sunday around 7 am and there was another 10 inches.  Again, shoveled it.  By noon there was another 6 inches on the porch and again shoveled it.  Sunday night I gave up and let the porch fill up.  This morning we had a foot on the porch.  There is EASILY 2 to 3 feet of snow out there and it has not stopped snowing.

I was supposed to fly out today but Southwest was offering people free flight rescheduling if your flight was out of Chicago today; so I’m not leaving until Friday.  The snow is supposed to let up on Thursday.  If that isn’t bad enough, here is my Monday morning, and as you are reading, remember that I could not make this kind of crap up:

Woke up at 5:30 to get Mike to work. Found out that at some point last night the furnace stopped working and the house was 49 degrees.   He has a heated waterbed, so we didn’t know the house was cold until trying to get OUT of bed. He started the gas oven and all four burners just to keep from freezing to the floor.  Went outside and the truck was buried under 2 feet of snow.  Did I mention that it is not a 4×4 and is just a rear wheel drive dually with the worst non-traction tires I’ve ever seen?  It was -13 degrees out, yes, that is negative 13 and blowing between 20-40 mph winds.  Basically a wind chill of -43 degrees.  Frostbite takes less than 5 minutes in those conditions.  At 7:45 we finally got out of the driveway… that took shoveling AND putting on chains in that weather.  We took off to get Mike to work the whole time I’m wondering why I went, because it just means I have to drive back in the SAME blizzard.  Arrived unscathed and I think he was the first one there, but was still an hour and a half late.  On the way we stopped by the landlord’s place and let him know that the furnace would come on but wouldn’t stay lit.  By the time I got back home from taking Mike in, the house had dropped to 49 degrees again so I shoveled the front porch just to stay warm.  The landlord came by and looked at the furnace and decided that the exhaust chimney was probably clogged with snow.  So he climbs up on the roof to clear it.  Now here is the best part —- he stepped through the skylight and I had two feet of snow drop into the bathroom floor!!!!   So, after I shoveled out the bathroom I made some breakfast.   The landlord came back and put an insulated box over the skylight and the house is finally up to 63 degrees — that seems to be the temperature at which I can actually properly type.  Any colder and it just doesn’t work.