The wintery morning from hell...

Have you ever see a postcard of Boston in the winter? It probably looked something like the photo below but I assure you it's nothing like that. It's not pretty and whimsical as the postcard industry would like you to believe guys - It's horrible.

Warning: This will be a ranty / whiny post so proceed with caution.

So I woke up around 6:00AM to help Lauren shovel the car out after last night's storm. Yes ANOTHER storm just like the other two we've had recently. Luckily this wasn't as bad as Nemo or anything but another 8" is enough to ruin your morning. So Lauren heads off to work and texts me when she arrives telling me the roads are horrible and she was skidding all over the place - we have four wheel drive mind you.

I get dressed and then wake Sierra up to get her dressed and it's still coming down pretty hard. At around 7:40 I call for a cab because I don't want to walk half a mile in a snow storm with a three year old. The company (Metro Cab) tells me it's going to be 30-60 minutes. Fine, no big deal, I figured it would be around that anyway. An hour passes and still no cab. I call and am met with a busy signal. I call about 10 times over the next 30 minutes and finally get through and explain. Me: I called at 7:40, it's been an hour and a half, is this guy even coming? And the the dispatch operator says "Did the cab get there and call you to let you know he was outside?"......... Yes sir the cab called, said he was outside, I ignored him and then called you to ask where he was. NO HE NEVER CALLED. "Sorry sir we will send someone right now it's going to be another hour to an hour and a half is that OK?" -- I laugh and say nevermind.

So now I'm in a bad mood. We have to walk anyway and we just sat for 90 minutes when we could have been on our way. We gear up and head out the door and it ended up being a pretty fun walk and a lot cheaper than a cab. The snow was up to Sierra's knees and she had a ball trudging through it and trying to beat me in the race we were apparently having. It's only a half a mile but with 8" of snow that's no easy task when you're 3 and my little one was awesome the whole time. This was the high point of the morning.

I drop Sierra off and start my commute to work. This involves another half a mile walk to my bus stop. This portion of the commute is all up hill and by the time I got to the top I felt like I had just run on the treadmill for 35 minutes. Thanks for the free workout mother nature! To the people who imagine Boston like that photo above think again here is a more realistic portrayal. Sludge, slush, soaked pants and sadness:

Once my bus came it was a 30 minute ride to go 3 miles down the road to Kenmore Station where I boarded the green line (thats the subway for you out-of-towners) where I then got stuck underground not moving for 20 minutes because of a "signal problem" - thanks MBTA! I then had to get off and board another train to go the final few stops where I then walked another half a mile in the snow to work.

I got to work at 11:15 AM which was just under 3 hours door to door. Hey not bad for a snowy day in Boston! So next time you see a cute little photo with snow covered roof tops and consider taking a wintery vacation to Boston- think again!

Is it 5 o' clock yet?

-Craig