For all intents and purposes, I planned on sleeping yesterday until the "I have to get up time" of 5:45 am. It was my first Friday back to work in five weeks, and the first patient is scheduled for seven am. Let's go back to Thursday though. Our weathermen, whom I now believe really do take a college course called "Backpedaling 101", were showing rain for the day. We had not seen the sun since last Thursday. One week of cloudy, rainy, and dreary days. On Tuesday, things were changing. A storm from the South! For those of us in the Northern Virginia area, storms from the South are the best! Sometimes if it is cold enough they turn into Nor'Easters, and we can get a dumping of snow! Thursday morning most of the weathermen (meteorologists, whatever, they just annoy me with their "wrongness") were calling for my county of Stafford and south of Stafford (where the lake house is) to get two to possibly six inches of snow. The snow would start around three pm. I thought the patients would cancel. Not. I thought the patients would start getting moved up the schedule. Not. I though Ray was so lucky to have taken the day off, because traffic coming home would be a nightmare. Not. Patients told me they were flying down the highway. Then I thought there would be no work yesterday. Or we would go in later. Not. We didn't get snow here, we didn't get snow there, we didn't get one iota of a flake anywhere. And the weathermen kept saying their usual "remember we said the DC area would get a trace of snow but probably none at all". Yes, I remember that well. I was just so excited because I wasn't in the DC/Northern VA area (Fairfax, Alexandria, Arlington County). I was south where they (those people that get paid lots of money to be on television to give me the forecast--shoot, I will even wait until that day to listen so as not to want them to have to predict too far in advance) were expecting the snow. The inches and inches of snow. And even I know from years of living in this area that the snow should be coming from the true south, not the southwest like how this snowmaker was happening. But then again, maybe I really didn't know what they know.
But going back to the morning. Yesterday morning. I woke up to no snow. BUT I did wake up to the fact that it was my daughter's 21st birthday! The day had come for her. The day for her to be almost caught up with all of her friends that are now still one year older than she is, but she can go out with the best of them! She can wine and dine (not that I am encouraging overuse of the "wine-ing" part) with them, and now she does not have to go to the same establishments that will only allow her in because she has the stamp "DD" on her hand. I was energized. I woke up five minutes before her delivery time twenty-one years ago. Odd, but I loved it. Then, I crashed and burned at work at about the same time I did twenty-one years ago. I was very tired at nine am. I should have still been in bed. There should have been a snow delay for me--but I was happy my daughter had a two hour delay, since she saw three inches of the white stuff (in an area that NEVER gets snow). I worked the day thinking of all the milestones my daughter has crossed. And being so very proud of her accomplishments and successes, and also quite proud of Ray and myself for her fantastic upbringing. She is growing up. She is making so many decisions. I am excited for her future. I am hopeful for it, too. That she will continue to grow and make the same great decisions.
I know better than to work Fridays. They start too early. They are too fast paced (no lunch hour at noon, but I do leave at one, while some stay until three), they are at the end of a long week of patient after patient, and they are the start of the weekend. I have things to do, places to go and people to see. And yesterday, I wanted to see snow. I wanted a "snow day". I don't have as many winters left in VA so the chances of snow days are getting slimmer. BUT then I remind myself that in less than two years, I will trade in hoping to see snow and wanting a surprise day off from work thrown my way to living everyday in a warm, tropical environment of play (and whatever else we find ourselves doing while being retired in Panama). And if my daughter does in fact live and work in the area she is hopeful for, where she has had the dream to move to, I will see snow when I visit her during the rainy season of Panama. I will see the snow, play in the snow, and then I can leave the snow behind for her. Maybe the weathermen are right that this winter is going to be a snowy one on record for us (it is only January 19th afterall). I think my predictions of retiring to Panama are way better than anything they have ever tried to predict in life. I will stick with my predictions and just choose to ignore them.
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