Oh, what a week!

(This post is rated 'R' for excessive ranting.)

So we had this wicked Nor'easter Tuesday. We had wind, rain, sleet ice and snow. The next town north got more than a foot of snow. In north-central New Jersey. Snow. Before Halloween.

I know that you higher-parallel people are quite used to this. But it really doesn't happen here. I only remember snow before Thanksgiving the bad winter of '95-'96, when the fall leaf collection didn't happen until the spring thaw in April.

So back to 10/28/08. Our power went out about 11:30 in the morning and was out until 5AM the next day. We had a cozy night in front of the living room fireplace, reading "Little House in the Big Woods" out loud by the oil lamp (the irony of that is intentional!).

The school completely bollocksed up the snow emergency. The parent call lists had not been finalized nor tested. The school's automated alert system failed, and all week has only notified middle-school parents.

I did get a call about noon on Tuesday that said there would NOT be an early dismissal and "all students will be dismissed at the normal time so that the township can clear the roads." So I expected Holly off the kindergarten bus at the normal 1:38. As the bus stop is a quarter-mile from the house, I left at 1:30 as usual. By 2:00, still no bus. A neighbor came by with all three of her kids in the car. She said that they were going to keep the kindergartners until 3:30, but that the road to school was in good shape. While I was talking to her, another neighbor called to say that she had a call at work reporting that there was no after-care for kindergarten and that her daughter would have to be picked up by a parent immediately. So even though I am her emergency contact, I couldn't get Katie.

So amid all this hearsay, I drove up to school, and to make a very long story short, got both my girls. The secretaries were NOT happy with all the parents coming in, nor with the fact that I was taking Gillian before the 3:30 end of day. But I wasn't going home with only one of them.

It turns out that the 3:30 buses were over an hour late because of the roads. So my kids wouldn't have gotten home until almost 5. Holly had lunch at 11...it would have been cannibal bus by that time, I think!

School was closed yesterday (again, no notice until we were literally at the front door, and a neighbor called) and delayed today (call last night from a middle-school parent). We did save yesterday by seeing High School Musical 3. But the kids, who were already excited for Halloween, got even more amped up by snow and no school. It's going to be a LONG go until Christmas!