After slightly less than half a day at work, where the big fun was hooking up my new monitor (a nice 19" Dell flatscreen, to replace the ancient CRT that died on Tuesday), I fueled my car, did some last-minute shopping and came home so we could get ready to go to Lawrence to see my mom and her husband, Marlin, as is our tradition. I had checked the weather repeatedly before we left, and promised Rohanna we would make it back tonight no matter what it took, so she could go to her family gathering Xmas morning. The trip up was not an issue, with a small amount of snow on the highway, and somewhat more in Lawrence. After a stop to fill a couple of growlers at the
Free State, we went on to Dragonet's sister's shop,
Brits, and stocked up on various foodstuffs. I also caused Rohanna great pain when I showed her the dvd set (#2 of 2) of the old
Robin of Sherwood BBC series on the rack there. After a quick run through Au Marché next door (where I picked up a Mo's Dark Chocolate Bacon Bar, report to come), we went back out into the rising wind and headed across town to my mom's house. The roads were snowy, but not slick at all, so I wasn't concerned about the weather.
Ww had a fine time at mom's, with snacks and hot buttered rum while waiting for Dragonet's sister Sally to close the shop and join us. She got there about six, and we had a fine time chatting about life and such, all the while with the Weather Channel muted on the tv. As the scenes of blizzardy goodness kept coming across the screen, alternating with the radar pics on the 8s, Rohanna got more and more concerned about the trip back. I kept telling her it would be fine.
After a lovely meal of beef bourguignon*, wild rice, rolls and Waldorf salad**, we had a brief exchange of gifts and then, at 9p, I went out and fired up the van and let it run for several minutes to warm up. It was brutally cold out (ok, not -23˚, but in the low teens with a 0˚ or so wind chill), and while several inches of snow had fallen, the brisk northern breeze had whipped the dry flakes into dunes and drifts much deeper. We pulled out onto the steep street and began the journey home. I had brought along a mix cd I call "Play Fucking Loud," and I put it in to provide accompaniment. We headed back through downtown and across the bridge over the River Kaw to the turnpike entrance. I had to stop and clean the ice buildup off the windshield wipers, which had gotten thick enough the blades were no longer touching the glass. We made it to the highway, which was in pretty decent shape. It had been treated early on with salt spray, and then plowed at least once. But the ice was building up again, and I stopped at the service area not far from Lawrence and got a scraper. Once I cleared the windshield and blades and we turned up the defroster to earbleed, I was able to see fairly well the rest of the way back, albeit occasionally by hunching down to look through a lower spot when a brief buildup would occur. It took almost an hour and a half, as opposed to the usual 40 minutes, but I got us home safe and sound. Yay me, I is a bearcat.
I am now sipping some of Free State's Santa's Helper winter ale, and waiting for the vicodin to kick in to deal with the kinks in my neck and shoulders. Depending on how much snow we get overnight, Dragonet and I will be heading back to Lawrence to her mom's around noon tomorrow. Hush, you muskies!
*At one point, Rohanna looked at me and said, "You ate mushrooms!" in the bourguignon, and I told her no, I worked around them, which was easy, since they were large and obvious. My mother was amazed that I didn't eat mushrooms, and Marlin professed shock that she knew so little about her oldest child. She noted that when fresh mushrooms first became readily available at the grocery store, and she and my sister would regularly chow down on them, I had already moved out of the house.
**I really like my mom's Waldorf salad, and hadn't had it in years and years. I served myself up a portion, and noticed some tiny red things in the mix. "Did you put cranberries in this?" I asked, before quickly correcting myself and noting they were pomegranates. Mom expressed surprised I liked them (it was a dinner full of learning experiences), and noted that when I was living at home, pomegranates weren't any more available in the store than fresh mushrooms were thirty-plus years ago.
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artnouveauho for the link.
