February 18, 2014: Dad Returns Home

Liesl was sneaky and climbed into bed with Dominica and I around midnight after Luciana had fallen asleep and after we were too tired to make her go back to her room.

I got up around five thirty. We went to bed so early last night that I managed to sleep well and still get up at a good time. I showered and got ready to go to work. I heard something around seven from the girls’ room so I went in there and discovered Luciana awake watching “Blues Clues” on the iPad. They went to bed so early last night that this was not surprising.

I told Luciana “You know, Liesl is snuggling with mommy, you can go snuggle with her too.” And she said, in the cutest voice, “I can?” and so she ran in there to spend the morning. Then when she saw me getting ready for work she asked “Why are you getting dressed?” and I explained that I had to go to work and she got all sad.

Dad was already up when I went downstairs. I went right outside to warm up the Spark and to begin cleaning off the Acadia which has been encased in ice for a week. I can’t remember the last time that it actually moved. The ice was so thick on it. Dad came out to help me after five or ten minutes and we spent at least forty-five minutes together trying to get the car free. It was seriously stuck in the ice. The one entire side was ice from ground to roof and most of the way down the other side. There was no approach to the front of the car. It was really something.

I finally got off to the office much later than I had planned and on the way in finished reading “The Moon By Night” which, like the other books in the serious, I have not read in two and a half decades. Next up will be “The Young Unicorns.” I am really tearing through my backlog of Audible titles with this really long commute.

The drive in was fine until I hit the Connecticut line. Then the roads got really slippery. By the time that I was in the office the snow was coming down very thick. That probably lasted for two hours.

Dominica took dad to the train station for Amtrak at Croton-on-Harmon at ten for his Amtrak Empire Service train 281 to Rochester. Official departure time was 11:06. If all goes well he is due to get to the Rochester station at 4:59PM although that is very unlikely. The train was on time getting him this morning but it is always on time northbound this far south in the Hudson Valley. Our stop is only the first one outside of Penn Station in Manhattan.

Dad had all kinds of train issues today. Before he even got to Albany the engine of his train just “lost power.” The engine died and they were stranded. He had to wait for another train to come “rescue” them and carry them on home. So instead of an empty train he ended up on a very full one.

But that was not the end of dad’s train troubles for the day. Shortly after he got moving again, a cargo train ran a red light and preempted them on the rails delaying them even more.

Danielle came down to New York City last night. She was supposed to come down today but the weather got bad and she had to take a quick flight down last night. Originally she had thought that she would probably stay with us but she decided to just grab a hotel in SoHo last night and tonight so we did not see her.

Dad eventually made it home. It was a very long day on the train for him. Dominica is completely exhausted and the ground is still moving for her.

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