Wintry Mix - Weekend Couped Up

College opens our eyes to all kinds of new people, ideas and experiences. My vocabulary expanded along with my blood vessels. It wasn't until I began college in 2001 that I learned the phrase "Wintry Mix"* You see, in Pittsburgh we had BLIZZARDS. That's right people. Snow so high we jumped from our old maroon and white conversion van into heaping piles. And, school was only closed because it was physically impossible to navigate a bus through 5 feet of snow.

I remember racing to high school in a little gray two door Honda something praying I wouldn't slide off the road. At the age of 16 I learned just how to navigate snow covered back roads and remain cautious of black ice. It made me stronger. Somehow I lost all of my bada** northern driver-ness when I became scared to hit the road in the rain. For goodness sake, who am I and where am I from? This is all part of my identity crisis, which I will likely blog about in the near future since this blog may quickly become my therapist.

Fickle NC Weather
In one January week we went from 60+ degree weather to a snowstorm with ice and freezing temperatures. Things that make you go hmmmmm...

MY EVENTFUL UNEVENTFUL WEEKEND
January 29-31

Friday
Left work around 6 p.m. Stopped at the Food Lion across from my townhome complex. Place was packed with folks loading up on milk, bread and eggs. Sounds like some good french toast. I picked up only the essentials: Herb rub for my pork tenderloin, light vanilla soymilk, roasted almonds and smoked almonds, avocado, rice cakes, apples, yogurt, olive oil on sale, goat cheese, edamame, etc.

I love to grocery shop and cook (even when there's a chance of snow.) Who am I kidding - especially when there is a chance of snow. At this point, approx 7:30 p.m., the snow had been falling for about an hour and was slowly beginning to stick. When I arrived home, I parked and unloaded half the groceries. I left the door ajar just a touch because I had to come back to grab the remaining bags. Instead of going back to the same door, I opened another door, unloaded and raced back inside to the warmth. Later that evening, I watched a movie alone since my roomy, Jules, was out of town. Fell asleep on the couch. Woke up around 4:30 a.m. and went upstairs to bed.

Saturday
Woke around 10 a.m. to the sound of my neighbor shoveling snow. Of course, I knew it was supposed to snow all night but somehow I woke up with no idea what to expect outside. Certainly was not expecting a phone call from my neighbor informing me that my car door was OPEN. My mind suddenly backed up...work, car, snow, people, Food Lion, groceries, door open to come back and get the rest. SHOOT! Not only was my door open, but it had been open ALL night in the midst of a snow storm, or should I say a large accumulation of a Wintry Mix.

It's Saturday morning and I'm wearing the same pajama pants and shirt I had on the night before. I quickly throw on a bra and some heavier sweats and head outside to salvage what I can from the back seat of my car. For those who know me, you can imagine how many shoes and pieces of clothing I had resting on the back seat of my car and on the floor. I also expected my car battery to be dead from the dome light being on all night. I kept repeating to myself "idiot" but continued to laugh through it all.

After cleaning out the frozen snow which looked like tiny little ice pellets, probably because it was tiny little ice pellets, I went inside to complete my itinerary of doing nothing. Moments later I receive a call from my neighbor, Diesel**. No, my car door was not still ajar. He locked himself out of his house! That's right. After shoveling three driveways in the freezing cold, helping me de-ice my car and chit-chatting with the mailman, he discovered the door from his garage into his house had locked behind him. He had no keys on him whatsoever - just had the clothes on his back, phone and whatever was in the garage.

Poor guy. We began just as anyone would. We attempted to break into the door using every part of the swiss army knife, my Harris Teeter mini-VIC card, and our body weight. No luck. Diesel poked, prodded, twisted and turned as much as he could to somehow get the door to budge. I tried some of my magic to no avail.

We then began trying to front window. Darn screen was locked in along with the window latch. Next, we trudged in our wet boots through my house to get to the back entrance. The sliding door would be too much to handle because the latch clings to the hook securely. Beast. Back windows were not an option either.

I felt useless. Until...I found a longer flathead screw driver in one of our kitchen drawers (yes, for some reason that is where we keep it.) With a new tool in hand, he made his way back to his already torn up garage entrance. In the meantime, I found a few locksmiths on the internet and called one just to see if they'd answer. Just as I began speaking with the nice lady who answered the emergency line, I heard someone beeping in. Diesel got in!!

Crazy. What should have been a lazy snowed-in Saturday became a 2 hour tutorial on breaking and entering.

SUNDAY
Woke up planning to attend church. Checked a few websites and finally called to see if it was cancelled. Sure enough, no services. I was free to begin making my whole-wheat pancakes with crushed walnut pieces. This time I added a few crasins to one 'cake.


*Wintry Mix - generally refers to a mixture of freezing rain, ice pellets, and snow (wikipedia) I'm sure the meteorologists in Pittsburgh used this but I usually remember terms such as rain, snow, sleet, hail, ice, blizzard, storm, etc. Still it makes me laugh when I hear it. It sounds like an elementary school teacher is teaching her 2nd graders about weather and overuses the term "wintry mix."

** Diesel is his nickname- he's our next door neighbor - literally attached to us. I won't disclose his real name, which is fine because to me he is and always will be Diesel. When he moved in, Jules and I noticed the license plate on his truck that read "DIESEL". Diesel happens to be a pretty fit, muscular guy...go figure.