For four years Grey and I have lived with closets so packed with crap that every time a door is opened, a roll of toilet paper or a hairdryer comes flying out at our heads. Consequently, we decided that before we can sell our house, we need to remove all the junk that’s been cluttering up the place to make it appear more spacious (and to minimize the chance of a law suit during an open house).
I guess we could have gotten a storage unit for all the stuff we moved out, but to be honest, the thought didn’t even cross our minds. The obvious choice was to just get a moving van and drive the load to Grey’s parents’ house to shove in their garage. Never mind that we monopolized so much space that fitting a car in there is now akin to turning water into wine. It’s winter – who needs a garage anyway?! Cue sarcasm…
But Grey’s parents took it all in stride. They didn’t even complain when we overtook a guest bedroom with garbage bags full of items like potty seats, old Navy uniforms, and lampshades. Add to this the fact that Grey told his mother that when we move, he’ll be stopping by her house in the mornings expecting hot bacon egg and cheese sandwiches and fresh squeezed juice waiting for him, and I’d say they handled everything exceedingly well.
Now if this snow will just melt…we can list our house!!!
Thank God the snow is starting to melt. For the past week, I feel like I’ve been living a scene out of the movie Misery (maybe that explains why I just broke Grey’s legs with a sludge hammer?).
ANYWAY, I suspect it’s the cabin fever, but during this cold snap, I’ve really enjoyed my daily doses of the sauce. Nothing excessive — that would make trying to contain wild Ollie even more impossible — but just one or two drinks to make me forget I’m a prisoner in my own home, that’s all.
Since nap-time isn’t usually until 12:30, I’ve found that on these stir crazy days, Grey and I catch one another’s eyes over the turmoil left in Ollie’s wake and say, “Is it 5 o’clock yet?” But with Wolaver’s — it doesn’t need to be happy hour! That’s the beauty of coffee flavored beer: it tastes good in the morning.
Now how about one that’s bacon flavored?!
This morning I tied Grey to the bed and shaved him with a straight razor. Funny what snow will make you do!!!
In all honesty, when I was watching the round-the-clock Blizzard of 2010 coverage on Friday night and I saw Bob Garbacz’s title of “Ice and Snow Commander” I laughed out loud. We had our friends Kevin and Michelle over for drinks and when we saw this segment on Fox 5 we all rolled on the floor for a good 30 minutes giggling. I’m sure the five bottles of wine we drank contributed to our hysteria, but like me, Kevin and Michelle are from the mid-west and used to massive amounts of accumulation.
Everything was fun until Michelle cut her hand on our ceiling while lunging at the skies yelling, “Back off snow! I COMMAND you!” Then, in my cold weather commanding frenzy I threw beer at Grey who in turn retaliated by dousing our clean-no-longer basement in Sierra Nevada. We hadn’t even been stuck in the house for five hours and already we were stricken with cabin fever!
When we all calmed down we began discussing the implications of this Mr. Garbacz’s title. What’s next? A global “Just Say No to Frozen Vapor” campaign? Obama’s appointment of an Ice & Snow Czar? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, I think we all can rest a little easier knowing there are men like Bob are on our side in the War Against Precipitation.
I love Groundhog Day. In addition to being a good excuse to drink cocktails at 7am on a cold February morning, it also has something to do with the fact that the most famous groundhog in all the land is a fellow PA indigen. Punxsutawney Phil’s a Keystone Stater and I like pretty much anything that draws my home turf into the spotlight (except things like serial killers, corrupt politicians, and chemical waste).
Even as a college student, Groundhog Day was a big deal. Since Punxsutawney is just an hour or so away from Penn State, there was always a gaggle of groundhog groupies ready for a 1AM road trip to check out ‘ol Punxy Phil’s prediction. And as much as a booze-fueled late night venture into backwoods of Pennsylvania to heckle a rodent sounds like something that was right up my alley as a 19-year-old, surprisingly, I never actually made the trip.
Oh well…To Phil!
For some reason this giant party in the woods looks fun to me. I want to sport a top hat and play with groundhogs.
Seriously, though, Phil better predict right...OR ELSE.
For those of you that have never been to Erie before in the winter, well, have you ever seen that movie Misery? or Fargo? Yeah, you get the idea — it’s snowy as hell. In fact, the first time Grey ever came to visit me there, his two day visit turned into a week long stay because we had so much snow the Governor declared the area a state of emergency.
But the funny thing is, driving in Erie is never an issue because of bad roads. I don’t even understand how, but our little city of 100,000 people has the most efficient plowers in Northern Hemisphere. Either that, or in addition to more bars and churches per capita than any other American town, the city of Erie also has more snow removal trucks. Is there an army of 10,000 orange CAT big rigs with jumbo plows just sitting in a giant parking lot somewhere in the northwest corner of PA? I don’t know, but whatever they do — they do it right!
Another snow day below the Mason Dixon Line! Ollie is clearly not Erie, PA born and bred. Living in Virginia has made him soft...
Today was like waking up in the North Pole. There was so much snow on the ground that the only thing to do was stay indoors day drink and play doctor. I naturally did this for many hours, but when I finally made it outside, I was sure to put on four pairs of pants and some good waterproof boots.
Being completely unprepared for a real winter, my snow boots are J. Crew galoshes with perky dogs printed all over them. In complete disclosure, I originally bought them because I thought I would look good wearing them completely naked. I think I saw something along those lines in a…film once and thought I would try it out too. Turns out galoshes are divine to wear with nothing else, but they also come in extremely handy during rainstorms (who knew!) and blizzards.
Today I watched Craig shovel my front walk while sipping some mulled wine. This was of course very trying and I was really glad that I had some waterproof boots to stand in while doing nothing. I made up for my laziness though when we reenacted the Big 12’s greatest hits in my front yard. Boy if I could always play in 15+ inches of snow, I think I would make a really good left tackle. I was flying through the air, catching passes that defied the laws of gravity, and ignoring Craig’s taunts of “Butterfingers! Butterfingers!” It’s amazing what snow can do!
I’ll probably have to wear my boots again tomorrow as it’s still snowing so hard I’m tempted to try my hand at igloo living. But that’s fine by me. Perhaps I’ll find another use for the sensational things.
In my backyard about to make the world's most deformed snow angel. You can't see my boots because they are stuck in a foot of snow, but they're there, protecting my questionable looking feet from the elements!
The miraculous boots! They amazingly complement my birthday suit, bikini, and winter wear.
This weekend we were supposed to travel first to Grey’s Nana’s house in Lancaster, PA and then on to Penn State for my brother’s graduation. But after listening to weatherman Doug Hill’s warning’s of impending doom and snowfall of up to two feet, we decided it probably wasn’t the best idea to take to the road.
Thank God we listened; traveling would have been a nightmare and driving through the mountains of PA could have been something from a scene from “Deliverance: The Christmas Edition.” I have a fear of Amish people and I can just imagine what those crazy Pennsylvania Dutch would have done to us if they had found our modern little family buried in the snow in our “Satan mobile” along the side of the road. Let’s just put it this way, instead of Grey being snuggled on the couch with a beer and nachos, he’d most likely be some hefty Amish woman’s new bitch. I’d be sold off to a guy named Amos while Ollie would be raised to believe his parents were minions of the devil who died in a drunken buggy accident.
Whew. That was a close one!
Just think: Instead of having fun in the snow all day, we could have been stuck on some back road in Pennsylvania with no other option than hitching a ride with a psychotic truck driver named "Big Whiskey" who planned on killing us all so he could wear our skins.
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