Miss D. headed out the door at oh-dark-thirty this morning, slipped and slid down the steps and crunched across the lawn to her vehicle, then promptly turned around and came back inside. Even for an Alaskan-trained driver, there was too much ice on the road to be safe.
As the light grew, so did the ice on the road and every paved surface. Our back yard and the neighbor’s are white at present, not with snow, but with a steadily increasing thickness of ice. There are accident reports from all the major freeways and Interstates around town, and the sound of morning rush-hour traffic in the distance is conspicuous by its absence. Looks like no-one’s even trying to get to work yet! I wouldn’t be surprised if most people don’t make it in at all today.
Oh, well. I have my lady at home with me. This makes me warm, fuzzy and happy. Who says ice storms are no good for anything?
Peter
Good call on Miss D's part – and lucky you! 🙂
Ice storms. One of the few really good reasons to stay at home unless you absolutely, positively HAVE to be somewhere else.
A wise decision on her part. Now I trust that you have her fixing you pancakes? I mean, if she's gonna be home all day anyway… 😉
It's bad on land AND sea. I'm currently crunching through rime ice on my floating gas tank, en route to NY harbor to try to get some heating oil to upper state NY. We get stuck every time we have to make a turn. The Hudson turns. A lot. Sigh.
Murphy's Law – I am a very supportive wife. I fully support his efforts to lose weight and be subjected to marriage with me longer. Including the low-carb diet. Which means not only did I not make pancakes and eat them slowly in front of him while staying out of reach, I didn't make them at all.
And gently reminded him to use the treadmill, since he's not walking outside today.
Nobody knows how to drive on ice!** Smart woman you are married to!
**(Except those crazy guys who race Porches on ice! Used to have a bunch of them up on one of the lakes near where I lived in Vermont. If they haven't been killed by it, I am sure they are still at it!)
Fair Winds,
Cap'n Jan
@ Wing: Wow. That's cold. And funny.
I think the frost giants are not happy with climate change.
Cap'n Jan – I can drive on ice just fine, as long as it's 14F or colder. Rev. Paul can attest that Alaskans get by all winter doing that.
Unfortunately, whether up there or down here, ice is stupidly hard to turn or stop on when it's about 25-35 degrees out. I got my second-ever ticket because I let going to work and driving home be more important than avoiding a downhill turn with running water on ice, and carried a little too much speed into the turn.
Man, his bumper was expensive. Poor guy. And he was all so worried I was going to claim he'd hit me until I ignored all the "never admit fault" advice, looked him in the eye, and said "Sir, you were stopped and waiting at a red light, and I turned into you. Of course I'm at fault! I'll happily tell the insurance company that as soon as we get through, and the cop when he gets here, and the judge if need be! What else am I going to say – your car suddenly leaped out and dragged mine into your lane?"
Ok, the cop was mildly surprised when he turned up (and it took him six minutes to safely negotiate the same turn to get into the parking lot), and found us both on the phone with USAA, and trading jokes about how this was still better than Ft. Puke, or Ft. Lost-in-the-Woods…