The Blackburn Digest

There are icicles hanging from the eaves, ice coated branches of the photinia “hedge” (approx. 16′-18′ high) and tea-rose bending to the ground and two ice-clad cars in front of my house!  Borrowing a phrase from my daughter’s blog, the weather is crap-tacular!

Have we moved to Washington State or Ohio since my last post?  Nope – unfortunately, this report is coming to you from good ol’ San Antonio, Texas- home of the nation’s largest number of drivers who cannot even grasp the simple ,oft-proven concept that streets become slippery-when-wet!! What do you get when you mix that sort of driver with the freezing rain, frozen-over side roads and over-passes and still-falling ice pellets we are *enjoying* in Austin, San Antonio and a broad band of destinations in between? A nightmare scenario for anyone who cannot choose to stay off the roads (possibly thru Thursday, according to current reports), and Stress Plus for mothers of those on-the-move!

On this (my 5th or 6th edit), I shall try to keep this short(er) and succint:

Mid-morning, yesterday, weather reports and driving conditions began to agree- -things were bad and were going to get worse for a swath of Texas including an area north of Austin and extending south of San Antonio. Easy Solution – sent a text message to our son, living in Austin and planning to travel down and join us for a delayed celebration of my birthday. . salient point – “weather awful-stay put-we’ll celebrate later.” Solution shot down – he was due in one of the San Antonio stores this morning; no choice but to brave it! Before I could send the same practical (O.K.-paranoid) to our daughter, she arrived at our house around noon,only somewhat wired from mixing with the slip-n-slide crowd.  By evening, the weather and the reports are getting worse. Son is here after a fairly nasty drive, daughter and her unborn child are here and safe, we’re fed and warm, and even son-in-law thinks remaining here overnight is safest.

Fast forward to today: TX Dot, KSAT-TV and a look out the window show icicles on everything, 1/4″-1/2″ of ice on the vehicles, sleet, ice pellets piling up on the lawns and sidewalk, plus reports of snow already falling in Austin and the Hill Country. Son has to negotiate a cross-town drive on side streets and prayer; frustrated daughter finds herself housebound. . .and not even in her own house!

Mom’s are hard-wired to worry about their children and extended family. Well, this Mom is, anyway!  By the time I was advised (in a clipped, cool tone) that “people do drive on ice, you know”, my stress-meter was clicking like a geiger-counter. (Yes, of course they do- – -and when they are surrounded by other drivers who also know how to drive on ice, they and their vehicles have a pretty fair chance of arriving safely at their destinations!)

I am pleased to note that A- Daughter was ferried safely home by her husband (we’ll reunite her with her car when this storm clears), B-Son is safely housed in a hotel nearby the store he will have to return to tomorrow, and C- I did not allow my Irish temper to mix with stress and create a explosion which would have removed every icicle from our house!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 10:13 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.