I must be crazy

Saturday there was a huge snow storm. Of course, it was just starting right at 1:00 when I had to take Mary to a birthday party--20 minutes away. It was starting to sleet (Keith: "Mommy! It's raining ice cubes on me!") when I headed out. And then the snow started accumulating. I had some trouble getting back into the driveway, but after a bit of rocking, we got the mini-van in the garage just fine. Two hours later, I had to head out to pick Mary up. Still snowing/sleeting, but I went out with a purpose. Since I'm ALREADY out in this crap, why not take the kids to the movies???? So, I drove across town to the Dollar theatre (which is now TWO dollars, thank you), and I FINALLY got to see Enchanted.

After the movie, we went out to the snowy landscape--and the van needed scraping. Of course, a few weeks ago John noticed that our ice scraper had gone MISSING. Seriously, how does one misplace an ICE SCRAPER? The only time it's ever taken out of the car is to SCRAPE the car! And we don't have to scrape the van very often since it's mostly in the garage all day. So where the freak did the ice scraper GO? It's a mystery. Anyway, there wasn't a lot of snow on the van, but some ice crusted on the right-hand side. I let the van heat up and thawed as much as I could....then decided that since we were ALREADY out in this crap, let's go out to eat!

We headed over to Pizzaria Uno. And this is the first I really noticed a lot of snow. The parking lot hadn't been plowed yet and it was kinda thick. Ah well.

We were only in the restaurant about an hour, and then I decided since we were ALREADY out in this crap, we should go look for an ice scraper. So I brushed off the snow with my gloves and headed over to my boyfriend Danny Wegman's place. Sheesh! He has EVERYTHING, but I didn't see an ice scraper! Danny! You let me down!

At this point, everyone is tired and cranky (including ME), so I decided to mail it in and head home. The trip home on the highway was fun as no lines could be seen, but I'm used to it. No problem.

We finally got home just after 7:00. Um. I couldn't get the van in the driveway. I tried rocking. No good. So, I put the kids in the house, grabbed the shovel, and started trying to shovel my tires free. No good. I was on my third shoveling attempt when my neighbor came over. Thank goodness! I was just thinking that if this last attempt didn't work, then I was going to knock on his door.... Larry and his son saved the day. We three shoveled out a path up to the garage, and Larry pulled the van in.

Sunday morning, I couldn't tell my driveway from my yard. A clean sweep of snow expanded the whole front of my house--you couldn't even tell where we'd shoveled tire paths the night before. I took a picture on the cell phone and sent it to John. His response, "I'm not coming back. Nice knowing you."

On the off chance that John DID come back (ha!), I went out Sunday afternoon to try to clear a spot in the driveway for him to at least pull in his car. The kids played in the snow while I tried to shovel. Getting thwarted by the amount of snow, I decided to try the sno-thrower.

John has never shown me how to use the sno-thrower, so I did what any girl on her own would do--I called my Daddy. I did manage to get the machine started, but I couldn't figure out how to make it GO. Dad couldn't help much since he couldn't SEE the machine and was going by how HIS works (didn't think until later that I could have sent him a picture with the cell phone). We both figured it was probably not a good idea for me to play with John's toys, so I got the shovel back out again. I managed to clear just enough snow at the end of the driveway that John could pull in once he got home.

John had left his car in the long-term parking at the airport. It took him 45 minutes to dig himself out of that. "I can't believe they don't clear these parking lots!" All I could think of was that scene in Fargo where the "Funny-lookin' guy" was trying to steal plates from the long-term parking lot....yeah, airports DON'T give a rat's butt about your parking conveniences!!!

John's reward for leaving me alone with the kids all weekend: having to clear the driveway the minute he got home. He told me that the sno-thrower was probably too powerful for me to handle, so he's glad I never figured it out (visions of my losing control and it running away to chew up the neighbor's house across the street are flashing in my mind!).

So....I survived the weekend. I actually did get out of the house--but I probably shouldn't have. And if Mary hadn't had that #@$% birthday party, I never would have stirred.

Oh well. At least I finally got to see Enchanted.