Today I worked on campus... for awhile. It might have been a better idea to stay there until my workday was done. The day started fine, with an early walk with Hardingfele when she gave me my payment from our gig and tried to give me a plant, but she couldn't get it disentangled from another plant. Then FART 5 had a potluck in a room overlooking the lake where we'd had training sessions earlier. I was lazy and brought hummus and pita chips... and so did someone else. Nobody was a deadbeat, everyone brought food, so there was a lot left over as we stragglers were heading back up the hill to go back to work. My colleagues were saying they were going to head home before the impending storm, so I told my former boss that I was going to head home too and work from home in the afternoon.
Was that ever a mistake! The sky clouded up and the wind picked up, but things were fine by the time the shuttle got me back to my car. I was partway home when Travalon texted that he was stuck in a parking lot in Middleton, getting hailed on. Then very close to home the storm hit me - no hail, fortunately, but it was raining so hard that I could barely see, and scarier still, the wind was so strong that I thought it was going to blow my little Honda Civic Noelle away. She was making a weird noise as I waited at the last stoplight I had to navigate, like the sound she makes when I brake in a slippery situation. Tree branches were blowing around, and the barriers they put up on our road because of road construction had blown down flat. I made it into the garage and then sat in the hallway outside of it, afraid to go upstairs with all that wind. The internet didn't seem to be working there, so I braved going upstairs with all my leftover hummus and pita chips and brownies and cookies, and then the storm died down. By the time I would have left work, it was just gently raining, and I had brought an umbrella.
I logged back into work and ended up having a Teams call with one of my colleagues, so I found out most of them hadn't headed home after all but were safely in our building when the storm hit. I decided to work from home tomorrow, when things are supposed to be just as bad, and then go in person on Friday. That way Seabird and I can take the Alumni Boat Ride as we do every summer. She sent me a photo she found on their website, and there we are on the boat! Did I know someone was taking our photo? Because it looks like I'm waving at them.
People are always finding photos of me on the internet that I didn't know about, doing outdoorsy things. My coworker said he found one of Travalon and me in a canoe on Mirror Lake, and I found it too, but I was never able to save it. And of course there was the one of me featured on this blog, on the top of Rib Mountain gazing down at Wausau below. I wish I could have saved the one from Mirror Lake - I was wearing a tie-dyed shirt and a bright orange life jacket, so it was very colorful. It's not on there anymore. At least when people find my image online, it's always doing something wholesome and fun. Then again, I am not usually engaging in activities where I'd be embarrassed to have my photo online. I'll try to keep it that way!
Famous Hat
No comments:
Post a Comment