Happy 4th of July

Today feels like Saturday. Which is awesome. Because it’s only Wednesday. And the real Saturday will happen in just a couple of days.

Mid-week holidays may not be ideal — no long weekend? — but I could get used to this work for two days, off for one day, work for two days, off for two days routine!

Now, if only it weren’t so hot…

I admit it, I’m a sissy when it comes to heat. I’d much rather sit inside an air-conditioned house than go outside and sweat.

Call me a whiner if you must. I don’t care. I hate to sweat. Period.

By that I mean, sweating for no reason. You know, you stand there with a hose, watering flowers, dripping sweat. Not from exertion, just from the high humidity. Ugh.

There’s a SLIM chance I’ll decide to brave the forecast 96-degree temps to go for a motorcycle ride. But it’s not like I don’t have other things to do.

Like prepare that “guess what we did in Philly” blog post. Or make patriotic outfits for the girls so I can participate in the 4th of July parade. Or sweep up all the doggie tumbleweeds floating around the house.

I finally realized that this heat has made the dogs shed a bit more than usual, which is why we currently seem to have an overabundance of hairballs. That and the fact that today, which is a holiday, is the day our cleaning crew was supposed to be here.

Anyway…

I never did post our storm damage update. You know, from the DERECHO that passed through our area on Friday. It makes me crazy that everybody and their brother seem to have latched on to that word — derecho — and are using it over, and over, and over. Ad nauseum (still one of my favorite Latin sayings).

We were very lucky. Both houses untouched. Damage here in Warrenton was minimal, especially when compared to the destruction in DC, MD, and other parts of Virginia, which are not that far away from us.

Maybe that’s why, despite hearing all about the damage on the news, it never dawned on Hubby, Mom, or I that there may be traffic issues during the Saturday morning drive to Baltimore. Hubby had to take his Mom back home after her brief visit.

He called me from the road to ask me to look at the traffic situation and, if necessary, suggest an alternate route. Around here, we refer to that service as MOMstar Navigation.

Thanks to the traffic layer on Google Maps, I’ve been able to get Hubby out of jams more than once. Usually, I’m able to tell him which side street to exit onto in order to circumvent the highway traffic jam. If you’ve never used Google Maps traffic layer, it works like this… green roads have traffic moving at a normal pace. Yellow roads are experiencing slow traffic. Traffic on red roads is crawling or stopped.

When Hubby called, he was on the inner loop of the Capital Beltway at the blue star. Notice that all of the side streets around his location were yellow and red? That’s because of all the downed trees, branches, and other storm debris littering the roadways.

I told him he was pretty much screwed and that he should stay on 495. I don’t think I have ever said that before. There’s always a better alternative. Which is why I took a screen shot of that map (above) to show him later.

To put it bluntly, his entire drive sucked. He said even the roads I’d reported as green were moving really slowly.

I told you we got lucky. Here are a few shots from around Warrenton after the storm.

 

 

 

 

I told you we were lucky.

Now, to totally change the subject, look at this cute little house.

So, how are you spending your holiday? I think I’d better work on that other Philly blog post…