Watching the history of chocolate, and wishing I could dive in to that vat of chocolate. I have been gone too long from here, and now the many thoughts of this past week are as murky as that vat of very good looking chocolate. Throw in some peanut butter, peanuts, almonds, or caramel and I am right there with ya...I will have died and gone to heaven.
Hence the temptation to do nothing but eat chocolate this past week and read, read, read. I managed to do the reading and resisted chocolate temptation for the most, as we lived through the first big blizzard of this winter and certainly for a few years here in Michigan. We heard about the approaching Armeggedon for days before it actually struck on Tuesday evening, and by the time it actually arrived most of us hardened Midwesterners were more than a bit cynical at how effective it would be, (as in school closings for hopeful school children and their equally hopeful teachers and work stoppage for many others). As most of us would say, we'd been there, done that and been disappointed more times than not. But by 11 pm that night the wind was howling and snow was drifting everywhere and the bulk was to still be coming. Schools were closed and I settled in to see what morning would bring.
Kurt was up at 4 a.m. and worry or anxiety had me up right after to see what the out of doors looked like. We had two, four foot drifts down two spots in the driveway. The backyard we really couldn't see enough to make out how much snow we had gotten during the night. We could discern it was still snowing and snowing hard. Several phone calls to his brother, and other guys in the plant had me believing Kurt was more worried than the others about the day's events. He decided to wait until daylight to get the tractor out and begin plowing the driveway out. I had electricity, satellite tv, and my internet still worked, so I was quite content with what this "Hump Day" would bring. At daylight it was still snowing and blowing heavily, but Kurt got out the tractor and cleaned out the drive, and down the road enough to see if he could get out later on. Boredom and cabin fever brought on by an anxious husband, had me dress in my heavy duty clothing and try the out of doors. We had a couple of drifts as high as the four foot fences in back and a rather nice 6 foot drift in the back yard beyond the fence. And when I approached the front of the house, a piece of house siding on the front porch was laying on the floor, obviously the fierce Northeast wind had blown it off. Two pieces of the porch metal ceiling were either flapping in the wind or bowed down. I put the siding which now had a crack in it, into the garage to replace after the wind died down and when Kurt had finished we "collaborated" on putting the ceiling back in place. I use the word collaborated loosely. If he would just listen to me, (which he never has in over 33 years), it would have went faster and been successful. As it was, we got them back in place but I didn't have much hope they would stay in place. And I would have been correct as always, the ceiling piece blew completely off shortly after we left it. Holy Cow, I feel like Dorothy in Kansas, where I feared parts of my house would end up.
By 10:00 a.m. Kurt was tired of being at home while others were at work and I told him to go. I, obviously, wasn't going anywhere, but as long as I had the amenities I was fine with being snowed in. The news here was weather and as it was the upper Midwest's first big blizzard when the mid-Atlantic and upper South had been getting bombarded by snows that were not at all usual, we were not news to anyone but us. I settled in and took it easy, for what I thought was the rest of the day. Apparently I was the only one who was content to have it quiet and not worry about whether a snowplow went down our road. Phone calls and internet buzzings were scattered throughout the afternoon. About 2 p.m., the snows had stopped and though the wind still blew, the blizzard was over. I estimated about a foot of snow, but it was hard to tell, as it was moving from east to west at a prodigious clip. The sun finally broke through and Kurt was back by 3 to again plow what had drifted in since morning. At almost dark, a phone call from Ryan let me know he had gotten his truck stuck just down the road the other side of the neighbors in a big drift. Kurt had already pulled out a couple of trucks that had tried the roads during the day, so the tractor went back out and he pulled Ryan, Alison and Ben back to our place and we had a blizzard hearty meal of stuffed peppers. Ryan had been itching to "play" on the tractor and move snow so he cleared a path down the road to get out. No snow plow had hit our road, a fact that had Kurt perturbed, but I didn't worry about it. The kids and Ben left after the road was cleared, and while all schools would be closed for a second day, we knew the worst of Winter Wallop was behind us. Thursday would be dig out day, the snow plows would go by, and business would be up and running, though schools were still off.
The final estimate of snow fall was about 10 to 11 inches around here, hardly blizzard proportions but the combination of the blizzard winds made is seem like much more. I read, finishing a book in a couple of days, something I rarely do anymore. My house still has pieces of itself laying in the garage awaiting reapplication in a slightly more battered form. I cleaned and decided how the rest of my winter would go. Oh yeah, that's gonna happen. But its nice to plan, even if I seldom accomplish, and if all else fails there is always chocolate, and chocolate and peanut butter and chocolate and peanuts and chocolate and almonds...
No comments:
Post a Comment