Derecho!

 Almost 2 weeks ago - on Saturday, May 21 - Ottawa was hit by a derecho (intense wind and thunderstorm). 

The power went out as the storm hit, and we all hung out in the basement. It didn't last long, and we came back upstairs to find a tree had blown over:

The tree was lying on the power lines, but didn't do a lot of damage on its way down.

Others weren't so lucky - one of my neighbours had 2 trees land on his house.

A lot of trees were down in the neighbourhood.

And still we didn't have power. 

My cousin - who lives about 20 minutes away - got power back on Monday night, so Tuesday morning Wanda and I headed to her place to work. 

Her cat was not impressed. 

They cut the tree off the power line on Friday, and Saturday night - a full week after the power went out - we got power back. 

The freezer had thawed but was still cold, which was impressive. Wanda cleaned out the freezer while I cooked the thawed meat. 

And then on Wednesday, the company I'd hired came to remove the tree. They pulled into a driveway with a crane and pulled it out over the house. Then they cut off the branches and left it there for the city to pick up. 

And then yesterday the city showed up to dispose of the tree

The Best Laid Plans

I'm on vacation as of Thursday.

Last week, I was running around like crazy trying to get everything done.  However, my brain moved into vacation mode yesterday, so today I was more of the mind that what gets done, gets done, and the rest will wait.

This morning managed to be hot, humid, and overcast. We had thunderstorms last night, but that didn't get rid of the humidity - it was still really hot when I left for work.

The air conditioning in my car isn't working, so it was a hot & sticky drive in.  Work was warmer than usual, as well - it takes the heating and cooling system a while to adjust to temperature fluctuations, and no one was in on the weekend.

I took off my sweater for a few minutes until I cooled off, then started my day. 

At 9 the power went out.

A few seconds afterwards, I heard the generators start up and the emergency lighting came on.  (I'm on the 9th floor. Those generators are loud.)

When the power goes out like that, I always expect it to go on before too long, but that didn't happen. After about 5 minutes, we started opening our docked laptops so we could work.  (Our monitors were dead, but the laptops still had batteries.) My plan was to work until my battery had about 30 minutes left, then go home. I didn't really want to do that because I wanted to go to the gym, but I couldn't really justify sticking around just to go to the gym class - especially since the gym didn't have power, either.

The computers worked, but the water cooler didn't. And the guy who stocks the kitchen on Monday didn't show up - my guess is he didn't want to carry three carts of beverages/snacks up 9 flights of stairs.

The power came back on at 10:15.

At 12, I went to the gym, only to discover that the power was back, but the a/c wasn't. It was hot.  And humid.

Luckily for me, I am used to exercising in those conditions, since I box above a pool, but it still wasn't much fun.

When I left work, it was dark, but dry.

By the time I got to the Queensway, it was starting to rain.  For the next 20 minutes, we went from the first sprinkling of rain to harder rain to a full-out thundershower, and back again.

When I parked in my driveway, it had almost stopped.

What a weird day.

Missing: One Spring

Three weeks ago, Ottawa was preparing for a winter storm.

Twenty days ago, school buses were cancelled and many people stayed home (or worked from home) to avoid the snow.

Yesterday, I sat in the change room at the gym. I listened to the others talk about how glad they were not to have to put socks on, and thought to myself, "Why am I the only sucker still wearing socks?"

I didn't wear socks today.

And clearly the weeks (months?) I spent looking for shoes to wear between boot season and sandal season were well spent.

Finally

I hung my laundry outside today.

It's possible that it's actually spring - although it was still plenty chilly when I brought the laundry in.

The rabbits seemed to agree, since two of them spent quite a while chasing each other around the back yard - with frequent breaks to nibble on the lawn.

I haven't gotten around to picking up all the trash that accumulates over the winter yet, but let's face it, sometimes that doesn't happen until July.

Last Saturday, the local Scouts delivered some mulch and compost I'd ordered, and they had to trudge through slushy snow to do so, so we've made a lot of progress in the last week.

It's about time.

I'm lucky enough to be able to work from home, so when I came down with a cold on Monday, I took advantage of it. I stayed home until Wednesday, but yesterday I really needed to go on - In part so that I actually got tired enough to sleep.

I left early to avoid traffic, and then finished my day from home.

So this morning when I woke to ice falling from the sky*, I thought I'd stay home again.

Then I realized that the odds of me going grocery shopping after work were really low if I hadn't left the house yet, and if I went to work, I could go out for lunch, so I went in to work.

It took me a while to chip the ice ** off the car, but it actually was a faster drive than usual. Driving home was fast, too.

That would be the silver lining to the "snow in the middle of April" cloud.

* not freezing rain - ice pellets.

** the freezing rain was before the ice pellets