It’s been an odd week, mostly due to what is being affectionately referred to as Seattle’s Snowmageddon 2012. It started snowing lightly on Tuesday night, and then by Wednesday the Pugent Sound was getting several inches of the white fluffy stuff.

The snow continued into Thursday, as temperatures dropped to the mid-twenties. This created a huge amount of ice and slippery conditions. Then today, the weather warmed up to the thirties, and rain began to fall heavily. All the nice pretty snow is turning rapidly into slush and excess water, making a huge mess.

Earlier in the week, two of my coworkers constructed a delightful snowman on our fifth-floor balcony. Snowy had coffee pod eyes, a mouth fashioned with red hots, and a little Rango-esque cowboy hat for his head. As the week progressed, Snowy began to lean to the side a bit and his red-hot mouth started to melt, making him look rather as if he’d just lost a boxing match. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s anything left of poor Snowy come Monday.

I learned that Elantras get great gas mileage and have awesome luxury features. Elantras do not like snow. My little car got stuck in the driveway on Wednesday morning, and it took both Paul and I to extricate it. Once in the road, I took it slow, inching my way along the ice-covered roads on my way to work. By this morning I was a little tired of my extended commute and was looking forward to the impending thaw. I got up extra early so I could hit a Starbucks on my way to the office, but when I drove into the parking lot, the lights were dim and there were no other cars. Starbucks’ hours had been reduced due to the weather.

Bah.

Paul filled the cats’ water dish with snow, which seemed to concern Angel greatly. She’d run to me, meowing loudly, and then dash back to the water bowl, as if trying to alert me that there was something unusual going on.

I let Oliver outside so he could check out the snow. He refused to stick his paws in the snow at first, but then eventually grew comfortable enough to plant his front legs in it. Next I let Saturday out. I had to grab him quickly though because the snow didn’t faze him one bit and he wanted to prance right out into the snowdrifts. Friday wasn’t quite that bold, but she was unafraid and curious.

I didn’t give Angel or Darwin a trip outside. Darwin’s skittish and Angel is super curious, so I didn’t trust either one outside.

By Thursday night I was feeling a little stir-crazy. I was going straight from home to work and then back home again at night, with no stops in between. I was a little concerned that I’d get my car stuck in a parking lot if I tried to go anywhere so I just avoided it altogether. But Thursday, Paul took me out to dinner at Red Robin. It felt great to get out of the house and have a date night.

To make my mornings easier, Paul bought a snow shovel and shoveled the driveway so my car wouldn’t get stuck. I’m sure it was a lot of work and I really appreciate him doing that for me. He’s the best.

I finally got my much-coveted latte from Starbucks this afternoon when I braved Fred Meyer to get lunches for next week. The parking lot was a mix of snow, ice, and slush, but it wasn’t so terribly bad and I was able to get in and out without getting too wet. I also got a cute pair of gray fuzzy boots for fifty percent off, which made the whole trip incredibly worth it.

So we survived Snowmageddon 2012, and by tomorrow Meltdown 2012 should be in full swing. It’ll be nice to be able to get to work in less than an hour, to go where I like without having to worry about whether the parking lot will be plowed, to have businesses back to normal hours.

I will miss our Snowy, though.