Birthday Blizzard

Ugh. That's about all I can say about yesterday. It was probably one of the worst birthdays Chad could have ever asked for. Let me just give you a synopsis of how the day went.

7:00 a.m.--Getting ready for work, we watch local weather people who say the day's high should be 30, with lots of sun, and a small chance of flurries late in the afternoon.

7:30 a.m.--Chad almost drives out of the driveway, but decides to go check the sump pump overflow PVC pipe outside, and discovers that it's completely encased in ice, and therefore none of the water draining into our sump can exit.

7:35 a.m.--Chad begins calling the landscape company who designed this sump system to see if they'll come work on it so that our sump pump doesn't overflow. He waits for them to return his call.

9:00 a.m.--Chad finally calls a plumber because he can't get a hold of the landscapers. He reschedules his meeting that was supposed to be in KC so that it was in Lawrence. He waits.

10:00 a.m.--Plumber arrives, and Chad stands outside in the below zero wind chill trying to help him unfreeze the pipes.

10:30 a.m.--I receive word that Darrell Hammond has canceled that night's show, to which I had invited a bunch of our other friends as a surprise to Chad.

10:45 a.m.--I come home from work to hang out with the plumber so that Chad can go to his meeting, and begin trying to contact our 12 other friends to let them know that we're still going to go to The Improv.

11:00 a.m.--Plumber leaves and only charges us $82, which was nice, but the fix is only temporary. More work will have to be done later once the temperatures get back up to normal.

12:00 noon--I head back to work, where I frantically try to get some stuff done so that I can leave early to go to the Improv.

3:15 p.m.--I exit the KUEA building, surprised to find that it has started snowing--hard--in the last half hour or so. As I drive home I call friends that were supposed to attend with us that night. Everyone is still on board. It takes me much longer than usual to get home because the roads are wet and slippery, and people are driving ridiculously slow.

4:00 p.m.--Chad starts questioning whether we should go to KC at all because of the weather, still not knowing that 10 other people besides Dante and Jaimie are going with us. I try to tell him that it can't be that bad. The snow starts coming down harder.

4:30 p.m.--We make an attempt to head towards KC. The snow is coming down so hard, we can't see a quarter mile in front of us. We get out to the Interstate and traffic is moving about 35 miles per hour. We realize it will take us two hours to get to Zona Rosa at that pace. Chad decides we shouldn't go, so we pull off at the East Lawrence exit.

4:40 p.m.--I start calling friends to tell them we won't make it. Chad is surprised that so many friends were coming. When I call our friend Mike, he is not happy with me because he's already at Zona Rosa, since clearly the weather hasn't gotten as bad in KC yet. I feel terrible.

4:45 p.m.--When I call our friends in Lawrence who were planning to make the trip, they suggest that we at least go out to dinner since we're all out driving anyway. It takes us 30 minutes to drive 2.5 miles from 6th and Iowa to 6th and Wakarusa. We pass several emergency vehicles tending to or driving to accidents. At this point, we are very thankful that we didn't try to go to KC and subject our friends to the same dangerous trip. The snow is coming down so hard, we can't see 200 yards in front of us.

5:15 p.m.--We arrive at J.B. Stouts, where we meet 4 of our other friends, but it's FREEZING in the restaurant because apparently their furnace can't keep up with the ridiculous cold outside.

6:00 p.m.--We have a good meal, but certain people in our group (who shall remain nameless) aren't in a very good mood because all the wrongness of the day is starting build up. Our server is kind of pushy and keeps calling everyone "hon" and "sweetie," which gets on nerves until finally Chad is downright rude to her because she won't leave him alone.

6:30 p.m.--Chad apologizes to the server for being rude.

7:00 p.m.--We check the weather and it has stopped snowing completely. We decide to head to the bowling alley, even though some in the group don't really want to bowl. The bowling alley is packed since the annual "Bowl for Kid's Sake" tourney is going on. We try to call Jaybowl, but they are very busy too. We finally realize there is actually a lane open, and pay over $21 a couple to bowl two games.

7:30 p.m.--Chad is not getting any happier because he's not bowling so well. Heather beats us all in the first game with a 111. I'm satisfied with my 67 in the first game, because it was better than my opening 50 from earlier in the month.

8:30 p.m.--Chad doesn't bowl any better in the second game, but Grant is burning up the lanes. I bowl a strike, then two gutter balls in a row, then 2 strikes in a row. Then I kill my turkey.

9:00 p.m.--Chad still isn't getting happier because he's still not bowling well. He finally rolls his first strike on the 10th frame of the second game, and follows it with a spare, and ends up beating me 120 to 105. That makes him a little happy.

9:45 p.m.--We leave the bowling alley, and see that the roads are perfectly clear and safe. Which makes us realize that we probably could have actually gotten home from The Impov safely after all. Getting there still would have been a problem.

10:00 p.m.--We arrive home and go straight to bed after a long and frustrating birthday.

I write all of this now in the hope that some day I will either look back on it and laugh, or look back on it and never try to throw a surprise party again. You can see how all of my planning to do something special for Chad's birthday totally backfired on me.

The one blessing in all of this was that Darrell Hammond actually canceled so that our money was refunded. Had that not been the case, and the snowstorm had prevented any of us from getting there, we all probably would have been out the $66 for a pair of tickets.

I guess God really does use all things for our good--even if it doesn't feel so good at the time! :)