I got through my first day of winter driving. It was awful outside yesterday. Even though they forecast lots of snow, there was a good deal of sleet and freezing rain as well. I learned how to scrape off a half inch of ice from the windshield. I learned that it's much easier to scrape the windshield if you warm up the car and defrost for 15 minutes first. I took it slow and easy on the road while others (young males) seemed to be playing bumper cars. In true curmudgeon fashion, I balled up my fist and shook it in the air at them.Some of the retailers here are mimicking the black Friday sales in the US. I've got my eyes on a little snow blower (at half price!) that will make shoveling the patio less back-breaking. Add another tick to the curmudgeon column.
I finished the book Red Leaves by that traveler's check guy Thomas Cook. There I was on my morning break blubbering in the food court. And now I can't get a couple of the overriding themes out of my head: Everybody lies. Can we really, truly know a person? It was a heartbreaking ending, as you might imagine.
19 comments:
It was 25 F this morning. It won't be long until ice and snow are the norm. I get an aerosol spray called DE-Icer and spray it on the windshield. Works like magic.
There's no curmudgeon like an old curmudgeon. Hahaha! I'm one too.
oooo, I HATE sleet. weather's crazy: Yesterday, here in PA it was about 70 degrees. Then, yesterday afternoon during the football game, it snowed in Dallas Texas a little. Go figure.
HUGS...
I'm sorry you have to experience this side of winter, Torn. The driving experience really enhances the whole "feel sorry for me, I live in Canada" thing though, doesn't it! (LOL!)
Wasn't the Red Leaves book something else? The whole ending blew the socks off of me! I was devastated as well. It was a great story.
Sounds like a book I need to read. I've so been thinking about that question lately; Can we really, truly know a person?
And what is it that allows us to override the knowledge when we find out that a friend is less admirable than we thought, but we go on loving that person?
Oh, a deep post in here, I know it.
Yes, warming up the vehicle first makes all the difference, especially when it's more ice than snow.
I think that all of us contain secret parts of ourselves that we don't share with others. Some of the things we dream and think and imagine are part of that, and also the less noble parts of ourselves that we often keep hidden for fear of ridicule, or not being loved or accepted.
Have you watched the TV show House? He always says that: Everyone lies. I would like to read that book. I am not cynical when I say this,but to some degree I think it is true. But it may depend on what we consider a lie.
Wow! Those pictures look just like Chicago.
Congratulations on surviving your first winter-driving, especially since it was indeed an awful day, even for more seasoned winter drivers. Just a liitle tip, though: it is illegal in Montreal to idle your car for more than 5 minutes, and they seem to be taking it seriously this year, so I wouldn't recommend the warming up approach without camouflage. What I do is that I start the car and start clearing the roof, hood and trunk tops before the windows (good excuse and also imperative -some idiot yesterday nearly took the roof off my car as a great big slab of ice flew off his minivan roof!!!). The De-icer aerosol is also good, but I prefer using Rain-X winter windshield wiper fluid, which has the same effect and is less messy on the hands...
Yeah, I echo the above. Use the chemicals to cut through the ice. Bad for the environment? You bet! But at least the consequential global warming will mean many fewer ice-scrapings in the futures. Really, it's win-win.
;-)
I'm a curmudgeon too.
I'm glad you made it past the virgin day of driving in the ice and snow.
I had a slice of turkey for the brothers who weren't there. (canadians - hee-hee)
Wednesday and Thursday provided the "sentimental" snowfall. Today was freezing! One more month and the hourly amount of sunlight will start to increase. Yeah!
oh how i hate driving on roads with other drivers in winter! they either zooooom past, driving way too fast for the conditions or they allow fear to cripple them and they creep along at a speed that is just as dangerous as the zoomers.
get the snow blower. the time and stress it saves my back is immeasurable.
I remember those days of snow and ice...
Hence why I moved to Florida. It was 80 today and sunny.
We should a seasonal club and call it the Holiday Grinch Society.
Or we could do it year round.
Maybe I'm crazy, but so far I'm liking the whole "Winter in the Northland" thing.
I found the final step in being a curmudgeon was when I wanted more things out of the Canadian Tire Winter catalogue than the Neiman-Marcus Christmas Book.
The first ice is probably the worst because over the summer/fall everyone forgot how to drive in it.
I'll add that book to my wish list.
Yuck, it's breezy and in the low
80's down here. I'm not sure there's anywhere I'd need to go to scrape that much ice off the window. Well, maybe the airport to head south.
Didn't you live in SoCal for some time? Man, you've seen all ends of the weather spectrum.
Man, I don't look forward to that at all...
Post a Comment