To That Special Guy Over in Iraq

Thawing Out

The Ice Rink

...with dreams of little chickadees

jumping into their mouths.

What the!  Is that a camera staring at us?

Pooh...

I'm outta here!

You're gonna be very sorry.

Finally!!!  After 78 shots, a fuzzed out one

that looks the way I think I should look ;)

Have I told you lately

how much

I

love

you

?

The only ice I'm crazy about is laced with lemonade!

Silly me...thought I'd escape my ice prison today. Didn't happen.  A slow drizzle of rain and 42 degrees didn't quite cut it. Clearly, after an apprehensive morning of too many peeking's out the front door and the 2" ice cover behaving as if it were plastic instead of frozen water, I was forced to cough up a more aggressive plan.

Mukluks, wool socks, loose jeans with ends pulled over mukluks to waterproof, thick flannel shirt, insulated raincoat with hood pulled up, and trusty shovel in hand; I began to clear the steps...good girl...then I began to shovel the ice off the sidewalk - ha - ha - ha. Then I began to chop at the ice to break it up and shovel it off the sidewalk - ha - ha - ha. Then I searched through the trusty Home Depot tool box and came up with a hammer and chisel.

Two hours later and my twenty-four foot sidewalk is ice free. Wish I could say the same about the driveway that extends from it...but I can't. I couldn't force myself to hammer and chisel my way down to the street. I'm still not going anywhere, except back into the house to shed all that wet mess and warm up. I can tell you first hand that a raincoat is only meant to shed water for a certain length of time which apparently wasn't the length of time needed to chisel my way to freedom.

The Ice Princess Meets Godzilla

These posts aren't usually written off the top of my head - like I really could brush it off my hair and pluck from the bristles the words to paste upon this page. You can see I'm in one of those funky moods today, but lacking an on/off switch to flick myself into a perfection state of mind from the who cares mode; the desire to connect only basically seem to be all that's forthcoming any time this day.

Managed to place my breakfast in front of my face at this computer just ten minutes ago, and it's 2:15 in the icy afternoon as I type.  Four slices of bacon fried to perfection with two eggs over medium; all in a skillet of coconut oil to make it somewhat healthier, with many cups of coffee laced with can milk.  I don't drink many cups of coffee laced with can milk.  I just present a cup at my plate and as it chills, it's tossed and another brewed up.

Happens when I can't motivate myself into gulping mode from delicate sipping and the room is coolish.  Coffee seems to be on my waste list lately, since I no longer have a microwave to reheat that confection over and over again until it has the honest taste of essence of shoe leather.  I've strayed here a bit, so will steer myself back towards that post that's stuck on the top of my head.

I'm on vacation this week.  Okay, let's pretend I didn't just say that.  The weather and my lack of foresight put me on leave this week against my freewill...well, sort of against my freewill. Who wouldn't want time off from work they aren't in love with, when they actually earn annual and sick leave each month. The choice of when would have been much more to my liking; but I haven't moved my life very well into the direction of having better choices to pick from.

I feel guilty today.  I feel guilty, as I'm not at work and I don't have a back-up.  I'm it...all there is in that one person office. Took me most of yesterday to salt my four front steps covered in two inches of pure ice and hack with a shovel, chipping away a little at a time.  I have to say rock salt doesn't work well in temperatures around 20 degrees.  I salted and chipped away all day.  Not all the ice was removed, but I did manage to finally leave the front porch and into the front yard that is a thick layer of ice to fill the bird feeder and put water into the dried out birdbath.

All of this was only possible because we had a one inch layer of snow fall on the ice rink the night before, making it possible to actually walk on that death by frozen water nightmare in my mukluks.  Waking up this morning to temperatures below zero caused me to linger in the house until sunshine greeted the landscape for a few hours.  Called work to give them the time my arrival would be...foolish me...I never got out of my driveway.

The entire right half of the Camry and hood still has 1/2 inch of non-budging ice glued to its surface and the other half has a few superficial scratches on it, results of being laboriously oblivious of the marks I was making prying off ice trying to get to a job I feel guilty about not getting to.  Go figure.  I was furious with myself.  Even without the icecap I would have been going nowhere as the whole dang car is frozen solid to the driveway :(  My garbage can packed full of garbage is going nowhere either tomorrow; its wheels glued to the concrete by mounds of ice in a death grip.

I'll be out there before the sun goes down to see if the sunshine has done a better job of freeing the Camry from its prison, as the road past the front yard is finally thawing out in this 18 degree temperature.  That driveway though may never thaw out until the temps are above freezing...Saturday.

Roads at work are still ice.  The sun hardly ever shines through the trees to the surface, but I'm told if I ever make it in I should be okay if I only drive five miles an hour in the middle of the road.  I wonder if that next storm is still coming in tomorrow afternoon.  May be a moot point arriving at work at all.  That groundhog had it right going back to sleep for another six weeks.

Ice Drops Keep Falling on my Head...

Freezing rain...
rain instantly ice
as it hits the much colder ground

then sleet...
falling ice
loud tinny tinkles
of frozen raindrops
blanketing the ground
a sound that's mesmerizing...

I'd rather have snow.

Sleet * Billions of Ice Drops

Freezing Rain

When Chocolates Aren't Enough