Oh, Mr. Weatherman...Wrong YET again!

Well, we didn’t really get ICE STORM 2011 here last night. I’m a little disappointed. I know areas around us got a lot more ice and the areas north of us got a fair bit of snow but our fair city got a little freezing rain that wasn’t really enough to even make the pavement that slippery.

I’m not disappointed about the ice. As I said, thick and heavy freezing rain is scary to both drive in and walk in. I’m more disappointed that we didn’t get our Weather Event.

Also, a lot of my Facebook friends who live in areas further north and west of us got either snow days or ice days from work today. I’m jealous of that and I don’t mind admitting it.
The problem with having the perk of living six minutes away from the office by car is that…I live six minutes away from the office by car. I have a have three left turns and a right and I’m at my office building. Things could be worse. It means I can run home to the pups at lunch, grab some food and get some puppy love before I go back to work.

It also means that I have no excuse to call into work unless there’s a level 3 snow emergency and you can get a ticket for being out on the road.

It’s a trade-off. It also means that when the weather is ropey, even though it’s scary for the short distance I have to drive, I only have a short distance. I’ve learned already where the areas of my ‘commute’ are the worst and so I’ve come to know where to be most cautious on my drive. Nevertheless, there are some days that would be nice if they were snow days. I blame Facebook for all the comments of my snow/icebound friends who were settling in with hot chocolate or pancakes or a movie or a book. Some of them still had to work from home but speaking from experience, some days, it’s quite nice to work from home while you’re wearing your pajamas.

Of course, I say that but I’m not actually the pajama-wearing-while-I-work type. I adore wearing my pajamas. However, my brain has this rather strict schedule about wearing pajamas. During the winter, it’s ok to take a shower or bath and put them on quite early…as long as it’s dark outside. Thus, in the winter it’s perfectly reasonable to get in from work, do some necessary things and then take a shower and be in my pajamas by 7 pm. In the summer, however, when it’s still light at 7 p.m., I cannot wear pajamas. It just feels…weird. The mornings are a little different. As much as I’d like to stay in my pajamas all day, once it gets passed 9 a.m., I feel rather odd wearing pajamas. You know in a dream where you realize you’re in the middle of a public place and you forgot to get dressed and put on your makeup? Being in my pajamas past 9:30 a.m. feels a little like that to me, even in my own living room.

So, that’s why I can’t work from home wearing my pajamas. I’m sure you don’t really care but I thought I’d share anyway.

Our little ice ‘storm’ last night wasn’t terribly newsworthy. It was enough to rim the trees with a thin casing of ice and enough to cause people who parked outside to have to chip their way into their cars but that was it. By the time we went to work, salt had been put down and the roads were travelworthy.

Also when I left for work, our forecast was for the temperatures to warm up, the freezing rain to turn to regular rain and eventually, overnight, turn to snow.

So, when I came out of work this evening and almost fell on my bottom, I was a little surprised to discover that it was raining heavily and freezing when it hits the ground. This, for those of you not used to it, is called freezing rain not regular rain. The temperatures did NOT warm up and thus, as I write this, the world outside is now encased with ice and looking a little lethal. It’s now supposed to turn to snow rather than regular rain.

What I find interesting is the forecast I heard was about seven hours before I came out of work. How is it possible to be quite so wrong about the weather, particularly when the people telling us it’s going to be warm make their living predicting the weather? I’m not the first person to say it and I won’t be the last but if most of us were as wrong in our jobs as weathermen and women, we’d get fired. They simply shrug and say “nature has a mind of its own.”This is true except, well, they have technology and gadgets and training that’s supposed to predict the weather accurately. If nature has a mind of its own, then why do we have weather reports? So, this evening, I’m now tempted to turn on the news and see if they’re back to the excited ICE STORM 2011 or they’re sheepishly reporting the weather as it happens? Given that most of us weren’t prepared for such an icy deluge, I think they have a right to be at least a little sheepish.

Still, we listen to the weather reports even though they’re frequently wrong. We care about the weather a lot because it governs so much of our life. It’s fascinating, really. People can always find something to talk about in the weather.

My dad in particular likes the weather. He has one of those fancy indoor weather gadgets that tells you absolutely everything you want to know from wind chill to barometric pressure. He likes to inform us of dramatic things such as “the temperature….is dropping.” If there’s a weather event predicted, he frequently checks his weather gadget. If it’s a winter weather event, my mother shrinks with each passing moment into a little ball in her chair because she simply despises winter. I think, if she had her way, she’d put a paper bag on her head and pretend winter wasn’t happening. Or, more likely, she’d hibernate because, honestly, who wants to put a bag on their head? I’ve tried it. It’s not comfortable. Also, it’s quite hard to get the eyeholes and nosehole to line up so you can actually see and breathe.

I digress. Again. Sorry, mum, by the way. I didn’t mean to divulge your secret desire to be a Mrs. Paper Bag head.

I think my mother should embrace winter. She should build a snowman and turn her face up to the falling snow and let it tickle her face the way I do. If she could just turn that frown upside down, she’d realize snow is lovely.

More likely, though, she’d tell me that it was cold and that there was no way she could like the stuff. Everyone’s different, I suppose. She likes summer which is my least favourite season.

Still, this time of year, the weather is unpredictable. When even the weather forecasters have to come up with alternate forecasts because they don’t know what the weather is going to actually do, you know that they can’t really predict anything. I suppose this is why they were so very wrong this morning. Last night, at least, they gave two forecasts for what could happen. Perhaps if they gave us multiple forecasts every day, just in case something changes, they’d be right more often.

But that still wouldn’t be very helpful, would it? Ah well, you live and learn. Stay safe if you’re reading this from an icy/snowy clime!

Happy Wednesday!

The Yappy Sounds of Spring....

Today was a real spring day. Even though the calendar, technically, still declares it winter, it might be hard to tell mother nature that. When I came out of work, it was a balmy 63 degrees. I didn't need my coat.

It was strange driving home and still being overly warm because I'd dressed for the weather this morning when it was only 34 degrees. It was even stranger to see the mounds of snow still piled high in the car parks where it was frantically shoveled to make way for traffic. The snow piles are really just ice-piles, dirty snow cones of leftover winter detris. Yet on a warm evening, they seemed almost alien.

The snow in my back garden has finally melted. I went outside tonight to try to inspect the fence to make sure that if my puppy comes to live with me, she'll have no escape routes. I also wanted to see how many daffodils, crocuses, tulips and hyacinths were starting to push their way upwards out of the earth.

I made it outside for about five minutes. I was driven inside by my neighbour's dogs. I've now lived here since August and still the blasted things bark as though they've never seen me before. I'd take it personally but I know they bark at anything that moves. I know this because they're often outside at 6 a.m., barking loudly at a sound they heard on the street. Given that they're barking less than 15 feet from my bedroom window, you can imagine how happy this makes me.

I'm not sure what to do. Tonight, my neighbour was actually outside, grilling while the dogs were barking. It wasn't The Dog Whisperer but it was his wife. She shouted at them, once. They ignored her. She made a show of trying to get them to quiet but it became obvious that they weren't going to listen.

Given that I had a bit of a headache and was not in the mood to try, once again, to bond with the dogs in an attempt to quiet them, I ended up going in. I've tried to bond with the dogs. The closer I get to the fence, they louder they get. One of them snapped at me the last time I tried to befriend them.

I admit, I'm a little worried about getting a puppy. She's going to be very tiny and vulnerable and those dogs are big and loud. It's bad enough that I feel like I can't go outside in my own yard without setting the dogs off. What's going to happen when I let my puppy out?

I have no clue what to do. My coworker did give me a device that supposedly lets off a high-pitched whistle, only audible to dogs, when you hit the button. I tried that the other day. It actually seemed to have an effect. It's not, however, the kind of thing you want you neighbours to see you using. I don't think it harms the dogs but they probably wouldn't approve anyway.

I could rant on about how they need to discipline their dogs, teach them to keep quiet but I'm a realist. I know it won't do any good. They're dogs: They bark. They're going to bark. Short of the dogs actually going away, I don't see a solution here.

For me, when I'm outside, I will put my iPod on and block out the yapping. Yet, for my puppy....what happens then?

I'm going to have to think about that. I tell you though, on a nice spring evening, it would have been really nice to wander around my yard, peacefully taking in the signs of spring. Instead, I was subjected to the bark of three dogs who followed my every move. It did rather kill the mood and kill the sereness of the evening.

Still, there's always tomorrow, I suppose. If not, is it a bad thing to take a hose to the neighbour's dogs?

Just kidding.

For now.

Happy Tuesday!

Icy Drives and Frozen Grocery Ads

I did make it to work this morning without too much snow-trouble. Granted, backing out of my drive was a little hairy. The snowplows had pushed snow from the road to my drive but after a scary moment when my wheels wouldn't move, a gentle but firm push to the accelerator got me over the hump.

The snowplow situation amuses me. I live on an emergency route- the fire station and police stations are just down the road and my street is their main drag to get around quickly. While they do keep my street cleared better than the side streets around us, I'm a little surprised that they don't get my street as clear as you'd expect. Of course, I also realized that there's a reason for this: Our 'snowplow' is a pick-up truck, embossed with the City logo with a little plow on the front. I'd say it was better than nothing but having observed the snow plow pushing a tiny amount of snow and not scraping the road at all, it does seem a little ineffective. Of course, it is effective enough that the plow pushes what little snow it does gather up and block our driveways with it. I can't help but think there might be better places to deposit it but since it keeps us residents active by shoveling, there's probably a point to it.

Anyway, once I made it out of my drive, I realized that the roads were more icy than snowy, something that worries me a little. Driving on snow isn't so bad as driving on ice-ridges which is what it was along the road that I take to get to work. I drove slowly. As I pulled out of my neighbourhood onto the main road, I saw something that caught my attention: I'd accidentally left the grocery-store ads that I'd picked up from my stoop when shoveling yesterday on the boot of my car- or trunk, to be more American about it. I'd put them there with the intention of taking them inside to read when I was done shoveling. Of course, when I was done shoveling, I had completely forgotten about the ads. Hence the fact that they were still on the boot of my car as I drove to work.

I think the saddest part of my realization was not so much that they might fly off and hit someone or distract them but, in fact, I was more concerned that they fly off and I wouldn't be able to read them. I love my weekly ads; there's always a Jungle Jim's one in there and it pays to pore over the flyer to see what's on special. It saves a lot of time by planning ahead.

Thus, as well as being very alert as a driver, I was also very alert to those ads which were in a thin plastic bag and blowing precariously in the cold wind. The hardest part of my drive was pulling into the side-street that leads to our building. Not only was it unplowed but it was icy. I fishtailed when I got to that part, carefully steering my car so that I didn't skid out of control. Still, those ads remained on my car, not blowing off.

You'd think after all that, I'd remember to take them off my car when I got to work. Nope, I was distracted by the fact that there were only two cars aside from mine around the whole building. I was distracted by trying to park in what I thought was a parking spot except I couldn't quite see the lines beneath the snow. Turns out I did part between the lines. Go me.

However, you'll be happy to know that the ads were still there when I came out of work this evening. I know you were concerned. They were frozen to my car which explains why they didn't fly off this morning. There I was thinking I'd been such a steady and cautious driver that even paper wouldn't fly off my car. Alas, no, a thin layer of ice held them steady for me.

I even remembered to take the ads off my car. Shockingly, I even remembered to take them inside my house. Alas, there were no amazing deals that I could see, they were just run-of-the mill grocery ads. Nevertheless, those ads deserved to be read. I may even read them again, just to make sure I didn't miss anything.

I had to shovel a little when I got home tonight. I double checked to make sure I hadn't left anything sitting on my car this time. I have to do things like that at night because in the mornings, I'm usually slightly unawake and only able to stick to my routine which involves juggling my cup of tea and backpack while trying to get into my car without spilling. Anything other than that would be out of the ordinary. I try not to do out-of-the-ordinary in the mornings.

Then again, I suppose driving to work with a bag full of grocery ads stuck to the boot of your car with ice is a little out-of-the-ordinary.

Happy Tuesday!

Icy Days and Mondays

Once more, 'tis a Monday. It feels like a Monday already and I haven't even been up that long. When I went out to start my car this morning, I realized that the parking lot of my building had turned into an ice-rink overnight. It was warmer yesterday and a lot of ice started to melt. Naturally, since the temperature dropped below freezing last night, it all froze again. This makes it very difficult to wear my heeled boots that I'm wearing 'round the office this week. Since our company is being sold, our potential buyer (and, hopefully, employer) is in our offices for the next week so we're forbidden to dress the way we normally dress which is to say that we can't just wear jeans and sweatshirts. We're having to look nice and, for me, that means my heeled boots.

So, as has been my habit, I wore my snow boots to start my car and to drive to work. Once again, I ran into my stray. He was not ice-skating around the parking lot. If he had been, I might have been more pleased to see him. The problem is, I can't get away from him. There are at least 25 people in my building. The only one I ever see is him. Don't get me wrong, he's perfectly nice but he's also very friendly. He lives with three other young men and from the sounds of it, they're a little frat-boy-ish, at least judging from the noise that comes from upstairs. They're young. Very young, compared to me. On Saturday, I was coming home and it was almost 12:45 a.m. He was just going out with his buddies and asked me to join them.

Now, it was a nice invitation but here's the thing. I'm in my thirties. Getting in at 12:45 a.m., for me, is really late. I like to go to bed at a decent time and wake up fairly early. I'm not a night owl anymore. Needless to say, I declined. Also, now I feel old. Really old.

My ice-skating stray also likes to knock on my door to see if I want to go get coffee. Again, it's kind of him but being a rather private person, I'm not big on drop-ins. I like my privacy. I lived in a college dorm in which it was normal to knock on a neighbours' door to see if they wanted to do something. Now I'm an adult, I tend to like to have my uninterrupted time at home to do what I want. If I plan something, that's different but when I'm home, I'm home and unless it's someone I actually want to see, I don't like surprise knocks on my door. And yes, I am aware that this makes me into an official Old Grump but, well, it's true.

I should probably defend my grumpiness and remind y'all that I call myself a writer which means I...say it with me now....write. When I'm home and I'm writing, I don't like to be interrupted. It's difficult to get a flow going when there's people around and even a friendly knock on the door can be a stumbling block.

Yesterday, I spent a very long time getting my manuscript ready for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. It was finished but I had to give it a polish and since I never could hold of my edited hard copy, I had to do it from scratch. On the plus side, I'm really happy with how it's turned out and I think it's definitely my most polished novel. It's the last one I finished which is quite a contrast because I had originally intended to enter the first novel I ever wrote and until two weeks ago, I'd been editing that manuscript like crazy only to discover that losing 15,000 words was just not going to be possible to meet the contest rules. It's amazing how much my writing has changed over the last eight years. It's definitely more mature and I use bigger words now, take the time to describe things rather than rush at the story like there's no tomorrow. I'm not sure what's best, only that I love all of the stuff I've written, especially when it's been edited.

I'm hoping to get it entered tonight. Since I had to get a pitch ready, I got to tweak an already existing query letter and, I have to say, it's better. It means I have another letter to send to agents in hopes that just one of them wants to take a chance on me. If not, well, I suppose I'll just keep trying and hope that the urge to jump off a cliff doesn't strike me during the rejection process. The timing of those cliff-jumping urges can be incredibly bad.

Seriously, though, I'm going to try and be more positive for the rest of the day, even though it's a Monday. It's a new week, a new month, actually. It's the shortest month of the year which means I'm a little closer to my next paycheck and we're a little closer to watching the daffodils bloom amidst the melting snow. As much as I love my snow, there's something cleansing about watching the final heavy layer melt and reveal the refreshed world beneath. As a child, those days were marked by getting to wear knee socks with my skirts rather than the heavy winter tights my mum liked me to wear. As an adult, they're marked by the freshness of a spring breeze, the green of the grass and the buds on the trees.

Yet for now, there's a chance of snow tonight and I'm hoping it will make for more traction on the ice outside my building. In the meantime, I can always hope to find my stray ice-skating outside.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with hope, right?

Happy Monday.

A Frigid Friday Morn'

Have I mentioned that it's cold outside? I thought so. Let's just say that when I drove to work this morning, the temperature display on my car said it was minus nine degrees. That's without the wind chill. That is so cold that there is no way to stop ice forming on the inside of your windows, no matter how well insulated you are. It's so cold that if you leave your hands outside of your pockets, they ache in a matter of seconds with the cold.

It's lovely to be inside at the moment, that's all I can really say. It's nice to look outside and know it's that cold and wrap your hands around a cup of coffee, even the vile office coffee that I'm currently drinking. It's not that vile at the moment but it's the first pot. It only increases in vileness as the day goes on. Yet I continue to drink it because it's coffee and on a day like to day, coffee helps the world not freeze.

I think I had a topic for today's blog but I can't actually remember it momentarily. I'm having a little trouble publishing because I now have two blogs- one for TV and this one. I love my TV blog but I don't update it daily. I keep accidentally posting my TV blog here. I've moved both of the newest entries over to the TV blog but they may show up here for a little while, at least. My apologies for any confusion.

All I can say at the moment is that I am glad it's Friday. Tomorrow morning, I don't have to set my alarm. I can bask in the warmth of my down comforter and the extra warm blanket I threw on top so that I could turn the heat down without freezing. I can lie in bed and read. That is one of my favourite easy luxuries. There is nothing better than curling up with a good book and reading in bed. I don't do it as often as I'd like which is probably why I appreciate it so much. The only other runner up is reading in the bath with a nice glass of wine. The problem with that is, naturally, there's danger of getting the book wet, the water inevitably gets cold and unless you've got a great bath pillow, it can be hard on your neck.

I love reading. I think I've mentioned that. I will give anything a chance. Of course, if I don't like a book or author, I'll have a rant but for the most part, I tend to like any good fiction. I'll read lighter fiction- Marian Keyes is one of the best for that. She's mistakenly called "Chick Lit" a term that is starting to grate on my nerves. Yet she writes fiction that manages to wrap itself around the realities of life, treat it wryly and make you care about her characters. She's one of my favourites.

Yet I'll also read not-so-light stuff. One of my favourite all-time books is Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True. That's one of the greatest books ever. It's heartbreaking, brilliant, poignant and believable all at the same time. My mother just got his new book, The Hour I First Believed which I really want to read but, as mum said, it's heavy stuff and drains you to read it even though it's excellent. I like some of the classics which I will read for fun now that I'm no longer in English classes and forced to analyze the symbolism of a tree or a fish or something. One of my favourites is Dante's Inferno though I don't read it too often. I love to read it for the language, the poetry of such a dark subject. I'm also a Jane Austen fan because I love her witty humour disguised as social grace.

At the moment, I'm reading The Baker's Apprentice by Judith Hendricks. It's a pretty easy read and the sequel to her other novel, Bread Alone. She's a good writer. I forget I'm reading a book and I feel like I'm observing someone's life. That's the mark of a good author to me, someone who can make me forget where I am.

Aside from being lazy and sleeping, I have to clean, as I mentioned. If it warms up, I may venture out but part of me just wants to stay local, to be able to semi-hibernate in the warmth of my apartment and enjoy the glittery ice-topped snow that lies outside the window. Of course, next week, it's supposed to get up to 37 degrees. Heatwave! You L.A. folks can mock all you want. It's pretty....from the inside.

Yet, at the moment, 37 degrees is still something to look forward to. Compared to now, it will feel balmy, I'm sure. Not exactly going-to-the-pool or laying-out weather but it means you can walk without your cheeks being frozen to your face or your ears feeling like they've been slammed by a pack of frozen peas. I can't wait.

Have a great weekend!

These Boots are Made for Walking...on snow...

It's freezing outside last night. When I went to bed, the wind was howling around my apartment building, rapping at the windows and generally just making a lot of noise. It was a nice night to sleep. It had snowed earlier in the day. It was the perfect snow that makes the ground and trees white but miraculously doesn't stick to the roads. That's the best snow.

My feet are cold now even though I have my furry boots on under my jeans. I bought my boots this year realizing that my nice skate shoes, flipflops and heels from California weren't exactly going to cut it in the midwest when it's icy and snowy. The boots I bought are comfy. They're mostly warm, very waterproof and are great on snow. On ice, however, it's another matter. I know, aside from spikes, there's not much that will grip on ice. Yet I do think there are degrees of grippage. My boots are at a zero degree of grippage. If they so much as see ice, they start slipping. It's a little like ice-skating. If I get out of my car after a bout of freezing rain, I have learned that unless I grip onto my car for dear life and then slowly make my way across the parking lot by gripping other cars, I'm fine.

You might wonder why I don't just walk slowly. Well, I can't make any sudden movements in my boots. I tried that once. Let's just say I came microscopacally close to falling down, my legs in the air, resembling a fly in its last minutes of life. If I were braver, I'd go ice-skating in my boots but since ice-skating to me is a bad idea, I think I'll leave that to my stray. My idea of ice-skating is clinging to the rail of the rink, slowly getting up enough balance and courage to move away. I can usually make it round the rink after about half an hour as long as I don't stay too far from the edge. I still end up falling down but it's still quite fun.

You're probably laughing at me now, and my desire to live in a place that actually has snow. Whatever. I still love snow. It's ice I'm not a fan of. Ice is mean. It hides. You can be looking at the snow around you, ambling slowly along and admiring it's beauty and then, boom! you hit a hidden patch of ice, concealed by the snow and then, hey, look- pretty sky! No...ice is too sneaky for me. It's also a lot more brutal. The ice storm I mentioned a few weeks ago in Indiana was brutal. Beautiful, yes but also much crueler than snow. Snow falls, landing softly, a soft coating of cold whiteness. Ice....ice comes down in the guise of rain, harmless, wet, gloomy and cleansing rain. When it hits the frigid landscape, it changes form, forming a hard coat of ice on everything. The more the rain falls, the thicker the ice gets. It's heavy stuff- tree branches that are tired to begin with can't withstand the weight and they crack, hurling downwoods until there's nothing but a pile of wood on the ground.

No, ice is nasty stuff. It makes roads impassable, takes out power lines and still makes for a breathtakingly beautiful sight with its crystaline glaze.

My boots don't like this ice. They like the snow. Yes, that's probably projection. By now, you're probably thinking I lost my mind- writing an entire blog about my boots. All I have to say to that is you're just now thinking I lost my mind, I'm highly flattered. I can assure you, it's been gone for a while. Probably somewhere around the time I wished George Michael would propose to me.

It's suppose to rain this weekend. I hope it remains rain and doesn't turn into sleet or freezing rain. It's my birthday this weekend and I'm really looking forward to actually be able to spend it with my family. It's been a very long time since I had a birthday with them and it would be lovely to be able to drive the two hours north without worrying about sliding off the road. I'll be wearing my boots, just in case though.

Happy Thursday.