I hate the freezy skidsstuff

The weather forecasters frightened me yesterday with threats of blizzard. It all stalled about fifty miles north of here, and the day was about 40 degrees and rain.

Last night, the temperatures dropped, the rain froze (see the glint of ice on the street out front?) and then a dusting of snow sprinkled down.

We get up at five, and DH heads straight off to work. While he's dressing, I go to get the paper. If there's ice on his windshield, I'll start his car to warm it up for him. This morning, I couldn't get the door open, because the rain had frozen all around it and sealed it shut. I had to give the dor a couple of good hip shoves to crack the ice loose, then get a table knife to pry the sucker open.

I know people who live in real winter climates are gonna be laughing themselves sick, but really, it isn't the snow that's a problem. It's the ice. As I sit here, watching the world, I can hear cars spinning out at the base of the little hill a block away. and someone, testing the surface, cruised by, tapped their brakes, and continued down the street at a fourty-five degree angle with all four wheels locked up.

So again, I begin my annual search for the perfect similie. Most of the expressions for slicker than are disgusting. I prefer, "Slicker than old Bill Clinton." Anyone got any others? (Not refering to entrails or bodily secretions, please.)

I had arranged to visit a friend in her new apartment yesterday, but I wussed out and spent the morning ironing the tablecloth from the last ladies' tea. A twelve foot banquet cloth takes a lot of ironing. When Mom moved in with my brother and s-i-l, she gave me a lot of her old linen and china. As I ironed this cloth, I thought about the times we had used it when I was a kid. Mom used to put out a feast for the holidays! She was a heck of a cook and really loved to do things in a big way. By the time I was a teen, alcohol pretty much ran the show. There was one Christmas when my twin brother got mad and went home early, my oldest brother didn't know HOW he got home, my middle brother never DID get home, and when I woke Dad up to send him to bed he said, "Oh shit, I've gotta get home! My wife will kill me!" He didn't know he WAS home. Mom couldn't eat a thing after spending three days cooking because she was too drunk, and the rest of us tried to pretend this was a Norman Rockwell painting.

But when I was a little kid, it was warm and golden-lighted and there was a thousand different flavors and new foods to try (Mom loved to experiment with exotic recipes) and I got to help set the table and pass around appetizers and it was good. So while I was ironing the banquet-sized cloth, I hung out in those memories.

Today, as long as I'm house-bound, I'm going to start the rumballs. Yum, yum!