28 Days Later

Some of you have asked what I’ve been up to. A quick recap on February:

February 1: A Monday.  We cancel Av’s regularly scheduled guitar lesson due to his siddur ceremony at school. A siddur is a Jewish prayer book, and this was the ceremony where all of the first graders received theirs. Quite beautiful and cute and such. Great group of parents and families. A late night, but totally worth it.

February 2: Groundhog Day! Surprisingly, the little guy sees his shadow. Six more weeks of winter. Such wonderful foreshadowing. Also began my two week stint training at work on a specific topic. More on that later…

February 3: Snow on the ground. Av has school canceled for the first time in February.  I go to work. Lead my training. And I get my H1N1 vaccination shot. Because I’m that much ahead of the curve.

February 4: More training at work. A storm is brewing in the DC area. Apparently one bigger than the one we had in December. People make plans. They buy bread. Milk. Toilet paper. I bring home my thermos so it can have a nice round in the dishwasher.  Later than evening school is canceled for Av for the next day. Without a flake even hitting the ground yet.

February 5: Impending snow-doom on the DC area. I get permission to work from home — but spend the morning stocking up the house with necessities. Interestingly enough, we deem a third Wiimote to be a necessity to play a 3-way version of Mario Kart. I do, however, work through the day — and advise my boss that I’ll be checking in throughout the weekend as most folks won’t be able to get in. By the way — this is Av’s snow day #2.

February 6: No way we’re going anywhere. We’re completely snowed in. A bit of shoveling happens. Not so effective. Lots of Mario Kart played.

February 7: Snow keeps on coming! Still at home. Late in the day we start to dig out a bit. One car can find its way out. One car is buried and isn’t going anywhere. The Superbowl apparently goes on without us leaving the house to find a party at which to watch it.

February 8: Work from home. K’s work is closed due to the snow; she makes her way to rehearsal for a teen production of “The Wizard of Oz” which she is costume designing. While Av is home from school (day #3) I slowly dig my car out…

That afternoon we get a call from the guitar teacher. He wants to know if we’ll be coming to the lesson about two miles away. I frantically see this an excuse to get myself and Av out of the house! Screw bundling up — we’re only going to be in the car for a few minutes, right? Well — on the way there, the car gets stuck in a snow bank for close to an hour. We miss the lesson, but we have a fun neighborhood interaction with several strangers who help me dig and push the car out. We go back home.

February 9: School still closed for Av (#4). New storm coming. I work from home. He goes to rehearsal with K.  Snow starts falling again that evening for round 2.

February 10: Another snowstorm. This is getting old. And depressing. The snow is just gloomy. I work from home. K is home. Av’s school is canceled again. (Snow day #5 in February). We get emails from the teachers to help come up with some work to pass the time.

February 11: We dig out again. I work from home. Again. Av is off from school. Again. #6. I make it very clear that I will leave the house tomorrow if it means trudging 30 miles to work in boots.

February 12: I make it to work finally. For the first time in a week. Av remains home as school is canceled. By this time he has only had three school days in February.  It feels kind of good to be back in an office, but I miss doing work without wearing pants. That evening I watch the Olympic opening ceremonies and tweet a whole bunch of #MadeUpOlympicFacts. It feels good to be back among the tweeting.

February 13: Normalcy kind of sets in. Beautiful mountains of snow start to look like  black pepper sno-cones.

February 14: We all watch the production of “The Wizard of Oz” and go out for a family Valentine’s Day dinner and dessert. Yum!

February 15: Av finally has school again — on Presidents’ Day! Yes — the school made its own decision to override the holiday and finally go back to school. I’m back at work. We’re back to guitar lessons for the first time in three weeks. Av is doing remarkably well.

February 16: My second week of training which I was supposed to do the previous week is back on. Although people are still catching up on work so some of them don’t make it. No matter — they’ll get to it eventually…

February 17: Lots of scrambling taking place to fill out paperwork for Av’s school for the next calendar year. Involves sending a packet the size of Montana to a completely different state for processing.

February 18: Last day of this endless training session — looking forward to starting the next one as I received a lot of positive feedback. And since there’s a new emphasis on ongoing technical training in the company — I’m in a good place. Oh — and Av gets an orange belt in karate.

February 19: Sick day.  Simply not feeling well. K gets me feeling better through the power of noodles. Life seems to be getting back to normal, and we decide it’s finally time we got ourselves into the 21st century and finally bought ourselves that new HDTV.

February 20: After spending the morning volunteering, it’s a nice, relaxing day at home – until we realize we need new furniture to house the new TV. And new cables. One trip to Ikea and Best Buy later and… we have an activity for the evening. After everything is assembled and hooked up, we’re too tired to watch anything.

February 21: Lazy Sunday. Chores and more. And Mario Kart on the new TV. Life is good. I’m feeling like life is going in the right direction. We’re coming back to normalcy and stability.  We’re enjoying the finer things in life — but especially our family.

February 22: Went to work. Was informed that the jobs at our center would be moving elsewhere on a certain date not too far into the future. All of us are affected. All of us are unsure of our future.

February 23: Work continues as normal. But not really. People are preoccupied. We try to do the best job that we can. Some of us are networking. Looking at other options inside and outside of the company. Some folks have checked out already. Some are throwing themselves into their work. I finally make it back to the gym — been so busy throughout the month

February 24: More of the same at work.  Wonderful people approach me and see how I’m doing, asking if they can get resumes to pass on. I’m thankful. And yet still trying to just figure out the next few days ahead of me.

February 25: Preparing myself for the Jewish holiday of Purim coming up over the weekend. I’m at work and doing work, but not overly concerned about the future. More pressing matters to attend to first.

February 26: TGIF. Long week. I’m in bed by 9pm.

February 27: Synagogue with my family in the morning — both K and I have our own special roles in the service. K is the first person to read out of the new Torah scroll on the Sabbath. And recites the Haftarah beautifully. That evening, we go back to synagogue for the Purim festivities. I read from the megillah. Av dresses up as a pirate. He helps me lead the ceremonial reading of the Scroll of Esther in a very Rocky Horror Picture Show type way.

February 28: I go back to synagogue for the morning celebration of Purim.  And then there’s the Purim carnival at the synagogue. Ultimately the day ends with reflection on what a long month it’s been.

For just 28 days, this has felt like a hell of an eternity. Here’s hoping the next 31 move by a bit more quickly…