It snowed in Raleigh today.
A week ago the temperatures were in the seventies. Two days ago the high was twenty-five. Today was slightly warmer, and for three hours this morning snow fell. The snow hadn’t started when I arrived at the store at nine. Half past ten the flurries started. By one-thirty it was over. By five the sun came out and the clouds cleared off.
Accumulations weren’t much, maybe half an inch. But half an inch is enough unleash bedlam upon Raleigh.
I worked a twelve hour shift today. Business was quiet all day, and throughout the day other stores called wanting to know if they could close due to the weather. Most did. I never saw the reason.
Driving home at ten was a minor adventure. The shopping center’s parking lot was a nightmare–a sheet of ice. The roads themselves were in fine shape. But everywhere, abandoned vehicles, some pulled off the road, some in the median, some blocking a lane of traffic. And in a half-mile stretch of the expressway, four separate accidents on both sides of the road.
I wish I could say the weather brought some character to the week. It’s been a quiet week, the one highlight being when I treated one of my employees out to dinner so we could go over her six-month review.
I’m off tomorrow, mostly. Except for an inventory at one of the stores in town I don’t need to go out, so I’ve blocked out tomorrow for six hours of writing time. I began the story on Sunday, wrote a thousand words to get down the voices of the narrator and the main character. We’ll see how far I can push the story tomorrow.
Cheers, people. Have a Guinness. I am. 🙂