We have a big winter storm passing through at the moment. Estimates have been any where from a few inches to a foot of snow. At about 3:30 am, the Federal Government announced that it would be closed today, which means Kelly doesn’t have to go into the office today. My office follows what the Federal Government does, so when the government closes, so does my office. For me that simply means I’m working from home today. Of course, the schools are closed as well.
When I woke up this morning, it was snowing, but not much snow was actually on the ground. The road outside our house is covered in a fine layer of slush, but the snow has only really accumulated on cars and roofs. We are still supposed to be in for heavier snow throughout the day. I’m actually fine if it stops snowing at this point, but the Little Man in particular wants the snow to continue because he wants to take his sled out.
Snow days are nice, but they’re never quite as nice as when I was a youngster in Warwick, Rhode Island. I can remember waking up on turning on the radio to listen for the list of schools that were closed. They listed them alphabetically and my brother and I had to sit restlessly through the list until they finally arrived at the Ws: “Warwick, West Warwick…” When we heard our school was closed there was a moment of both utter glee and relief.
Nowadays, a snow day simply means I don’t have to brave the roads to head into the office. I can work from home. Which is exactly what I am doing today.
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When I was a teacher, I always wondered if the kids knew that we wanted a snow day almost as much as they did. In Cleveland you got a few, but you woke up and looked out the window and knew there was a snow day. Here, I have to check about three different sources before I’ll believe that we’re closed. It never really looks that bad to me… but honestly, I’m not going to knock a day off from work. 🙂
Jess, since my memories of this are crystal clear, I can tell you that, for this ten-year-old, it never once crossed my mind that a teacher might also want a snow day. In my imagination, teachers ate their dinners and even slept the in classrooms after the students left. They were as much a part of the school as the bricks that made up the buildings. That a teacher would ever be outside the school, let alone desire to be outside the school was utterly incomprehensible. (“What’s a few feet of snow?” I could imagine them saying, with a tiny curl of dread in my stomach, “After all, I don’t have to go out into that snow.”)