Now I'm just angry.

Yeah. I hate winter. Live with it. But I'll suffer in relative silence as long as winter just sucks. But when winter gets mean, I get angry.

Yesterday was Katherine's birthday. She's 14. It's her favorite number, she says, and she's acting more and more like a young lady. Oh she has her moments, believe me, but on the whole there are now more days when I like her than want to toss her out the window. But you know, no matter how difficult a year might be (and this has been an easy one by far), birthdays are special. You want your child, your spouse, your friend, to feel loved and appreciated and, well, special.

Then winter and snow hit.
Katherine's birthday fell on Friday, February 5th, a great way to have a complete birthday weekend. She was supposed to go to school, have Happy Birthdays tossed at her from every direction and her locker decorated. She was supposed to stay after school for an SCA sponsored Activity Day dance/games/snacks deal. Basically, a party on her birthday. My mom (who shares a birthday with her, so her day was messed up too), was supposed to come down to our house and celebrate with cake and presents. My mom was supposed to bring Katherine back up with her and to a metro stop so Katherine could train downtown and meet up with Ian for a Caps/Thrashers hockey game at the Verizon center. She opened her gifts which included ice skating lessons starting next Saturday for a month, along with passes for open skate times.
Want to know what happened? Winter happened. Snow happened. The threat of snow was enough that school was canceled on Friday even though we had barely a dusting stick by 5 p.m. No locker decorations, no SCA party. My mom couldn't come down for fear she'd get stuck here for days. Snow picked up at sundown and was gathering quickly, Ian (who had worked from home, just in case) knew it was too dangerous to make the 50 minute trip downtown because who knew what weather conditions would really be like 4 hours later. But... the game wasn't canceled, so the tickets are lost. They watched it on TV. A huge bummer. At least the skate lessons were still on, right?
Then today we read this: Prince William Ice Center Collapses. I kid you not, the center for her lessons collapsed. Thankfully no one was hurt, they were having speed skating races but when the roof started groaning they evacuated everyone.
[And my dad was supposed to get back in town last night to at least see my mom on her birthday. He's stuck in Chicago.]
Katherine is taking it well. She went sledding with her friends today, and played Rock Band with them too. I don't see school opening on Monday, so I'm guessing she'll do a sleep-over tomorrow night.
I'm just done with winter. I'm done with it interfering with life. We haven't lost power, which is a total blessing, because you know we don't have generators here.
If we do lose power, I'm moving back to Chennai. OK, don't hold me to that, but right this very second it's awfully tempting.