The Neon Nurse's Charting

All things considered, God can probably use a good laugh as much as anyone these days. But we are going to miss her down here.

I know it isn't Tune Tuesday, but I thought I would post this so everyone who wants it can have a little bit of Molly's humor to remember her by.

Click here to download The Wrockers (Rock Bottom Remainders) - Molly Ivins - It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels

And here's a quote from her I totally endorse. "Go. Get. The. Damn. Mammogram. Done."

I'm starting a list because I am theoretically starting our taxes. So far on the list we have a new hot water heater and a new back door.

Hot water heaters don't last like they used to, and this one is six or seven, I think. We had another incident where the pilot light just blinked off for no reason we could see. The last time it happened it kept doing it for a couple of weeks, but I finally figured out a way to clean built-up carbon out of the little pipe (one of those teeny brushes sold for flossing between your teeth!) and that held it until last week. But I tried the floss brush again, and MAGIC! Hot water ever since. Still, I think a new one might be a good idea.

The door is one we meant to replace last summer when we did the others, except I got tired of installing doors and we put it off a while. It's about to fall apart, though, despite its heavy winter coat of duct tape. I hope it can hold out until the weather decides to let us get above freezing for part of the day on a semi-regular basis.

But hey, it's almost February, and we know the groundhog won't see his shadow around HERE, because there's still two dang feet of snow covering his burrow and he can't GET OUT.

Also upcoming for February, Valentine's Day. So for Tune Tuesday (look, I remembered this week!), here's one you probably haven't heard, from an album (recently re-released on CD) where the Supremes sang show tunes!

Click here to download The Supremes - My Funny Valentine

We were delighted to have a weekend where it did not snow! The weather remains pretty cold, though. One day last week was in the high 30s, but next week is forecast to be cold again.

Had a few days of the extra-heavy, sparkly frost early in the morning, though, which is always a treat to look at.

Had an unexpected contact from one of my exes last night. Not the good one, sadly. The crazy one. He seems to have my email address in his batch list for spammin', probably ganked from his sister's mass forward list. Anyway, he kindly invited me to join his new Satanist group on Yahoo.

That's my ex, the Neo-Confederate Satanist pirate.

Let's see, what else is weird? Souvenir has been having spells of traipsing through the house, calling melodiously for imaginary girlfriends. With none available, he works out his confused feelings by getting feisty with Mr. Handy (ow), and trying to get it on with the two spayed granny cats and even his cat-sister, Climber the dog. He drew the line at being humped by Cowboy the dog, though. I'm not sure if Cowboy thinks Souvy suddenly smells much more interesting or was just trying to dominate him because he's been being so wild.

In any case, Souvenir has an appointment with Dr. Eaton on Tuesday, where they will remove the one visible testicle and have a look-around to see if they can spot the shy one.

Now I'm going to go collect up all my weird trash for Free Dump Day.

I've been meaning to post this little public service message for everyone reading this who is likely to encounter snow and ice as winter drags on and on and on and...sorry.

My friend Carol K told me about these great thingies you can slip on over your shoes or snowboots called Yaxtrax.



(That is Carol's Yaxtraxed boot and sock foot for size comparison. She does not actually have two right feet. Although that would be cool for making bar bets and stuff.)

Since I'd been having a hard time getting around on the ice-covered snow, I decided to try a pair. I wish I had had them BEFORE the blizzards came! They are easy to put on and work great on snow and ice. The clone and I agree that they feel a little funny on bare pavement, but on the other hand, the spring in the bottoms that give you the grip on ice doesn't hurt carpeted floors.

Since they are stretchy, the Size Small would work for most women's feet. I wear 8 1/2-9 1/2 in normal shoes, and these stretched on over my slightly bigger snowboots with no trouble. They come in various colors, too! Mine are a jazzy neon orange, but you can get glow in the dark green too. And black.

I got mine from an eBay seller Theracksource, who also have a website, www.seasonaloutfitters.com . They were $17.95 with shipping included.

When you stop to think how much it could cost you to go to the doctor if you slip and fall, it's well worth it!

How can it be Friday already tomorrow? It just WAS Friday....

Maybe I goof around with pictures too much. I've been thinking I haven't showed Souvenir off lately, now that he is getting to be a REALLY big cat. So today when I spotted him romping around on Mike's unmade bunkbed, I went to give it a go.

Unlike most cats I have known, Souvy does not mind the camera flash in the slightest. In fact, it seems to trigger his play instinct, because as I took them he started rolling around and getting into sillier and sillier poses.

This was the best one: "No! You shall not make the bed!! I am KING OF THE BED!!!"

Whoops, fell behind in my posting again. Not that you missed much. It snowed again over the weekend, and how sad is it that we just looked out and shrugged, "Only 6 inches? Pah! No panic reaction for YOU, Mother Nature!"

We had just a teeny bit of excitement Friday. Thursday afternoon I had noticed the snow was tinted yellowish-green under Dreamcloud's right front tire. I checked the fluid, which was down maybe half an inch, kicked snow over the antifreeze so no animals could lick it, and decided to stop by to see Rick the Car Doctor the next morning after I dropped Caro and Mike at school.

To our dismay, the dreaded *Check Engine* light came on as we drove to town!! Now it was not just a good idea to drop by the auto shop, it was a behavioral imperative!

Since they are really super nice over there, they worked me in. The fluid leak was caused by a loose hose connection (the roads are really seriously bumpy here right now), and the Check Engine light was for a code saying the system was running "too lean", so I'm guessing the carburetor needed a little adjustment too. I'm guessing because I didn't talk to the mechanic, only the office clerk, and I had the feeling she didn't really grasp the details either, because she told me "if the engine starts leaning again, just bring it back in."

It was -16F here last night. But we are all alive and warm!

I had gone to bed Monday night worrying a little about our propane supply. The local paper and radio stations have been telling people that the propane companies CAN'T fill your tank if they can't get TO your tank.

Our tank. That little gray thing at the top of the snowdrift in front of the tree in the center is the hatch on top. The whole tank's about four feet high.



We are on a route where the propane guy comes by and checks you about once a month. If you need it, they top you up and send you a bill. We'd been feeling lucky they had come by on December 18th, before the blizzards came, and put in 150 gallons. Also, we have good insulation here. But the question was, how long would the propane last with the weather this cold? Would it hold out until we could get that half of the driveway cleared?

The guy called yesterday and I explained our dilemma. He said he would drive by and take a look to see how much we still had.

I heard the big ol' truck pull up in the road a little later. When I went to look, our guy was digging down through the snow and ice to get to the tank hatch, which he then pried open using the shovel edge. I thought that was extra nice of him, to go to all that trouble. But THEN he went and got out the LONG hose, and dragged it all the way to the tank through the snow so he could add more propane!

This is what you call good customer service! It even beats the time we accidentally ran out on SuperBowl Sunday, and they came out to do an emergency refill during half time! The guy said he didn't mind, his team was losing anyway.

But that is why I say small towns, and Wallace Gas and Oil rock!

That cold front is now a cold middle. The bank clock said -4 when I drove Mike and Caro to school, but it's always a little high. The NOAA page said -6. But now it has climbed to a dizzy 1 degree F.

Darn good thing we got lucky and scored a snow shovel Friday, because we may need to get the path to the propane tank cleared sooner than May or June. On Friday, when I was at the middle school to GET Caro and Mike, I was telling some other teachers about our recent adventures, and one of them revealed she had seen a bunch of snow shovels stuck in the snowbank in front of the NAPA Auto Parts on Main Street in an advertising sort of way. So we checked it out, and bought the second to last one!!! Yay!

It was another nice quiet weekend at home for us. Only got minimal snow from the passing storm, and NO ice, so that made me happy. Mike seemed to be having a belated case of cabin fever, making him cranky off and on, but as the same could be said of me, I can't point fingers.

One thing about Mike that was GOOD was him nagging urging me to help him write something for his LJ/blog. He kept thinking of more and more topics, and it was so good to see him getting excited about communicating something new for him, where he had to concentrate hard for more words in new combinations that made his meaning clear. He was bouncing in place, with his eyes shining, working his brain and enjoying it!

I'm adding a link here, which we got from Carol K, and watched multiple times with great amazement. Mike did already put it on his LJ, so a few of you may have seen it, but if you haven't yet, you should! It's a cottontail having a tiff with a snake, probably a Mombunny, considering how fierce she's acting. Check it out!

http://www.reedy.org/forums/rabbitvssnake.wmv

This is a small version of the photo I put on the Live Journal community "day_on_earth" today. I was going to town to fetch Caro and Mike and came upon our rural mail carrier duly and heroically making her appointed rounds.



P.S. This is the one of the GOOD parts of the road right now!

P.S.S. It's 6 degrees here, but we are home and inside and warm and powered up, so all is well!

Well, so far there doesn't seem to be much of an ice slick built up, although it's 7 degrees out, with a wind chill of -8F. Brrr much? So I should be able to head out and fetch the clone and the boy from school soon and get us all back home alive....

(Me? Bummed out by the weather? What makes you say THAT?)

You might have noticed I haven't posted any pics of the wondrous white stuff lately. That's because I am pretty much sick to death of it now, and it's hard to look at it with a creative, inspired art photo eye when what I really want to do is shriek my lungs out while I shake my fists at the sky. I don't do that, of course, because I would almost certainly fall on my butt. Again.

Nature is just AGAINST me right now. Yesterday I went out with a half-gallon plastic pitcher full of cheap kitty litter, to add to the path that goes from the back steps to the driveway. I was almost to the end, but almost out, and stopped to consider whether to veer over THERE with the last little bit, or over THERE. That was when my heel slipped on a chunk of ice. To catch my balance, I threw my arms up...so the kitty litter got distributed EVERYWHERE.

*sigh*

Then shortly after I had psyched myself up to carry a 37 pound box of books, one of the last of the backlog of items I sold while we were stuck at home, out to Dreamcloud. I put it on my shoulder so I could try my clever plan of aiding my balance while using our faithful shovel as a walking stick. I stepped out...well, tried to. Tried again, and again...finally realized the box of books was pressed against a tree branch. I managed to free it, but I dropped my shovel. :< Got to the car okay anyway, except I had to sit for several minutes until I wasn't panting so hard the defroster couldn't clear the windshield.

I really don't know how people manage where the winter is ALWAYS like this!

One thing did make me laugh and take a picture yesterday. Over behind our firestation, the firefighters were having fun tagging the giant piles of snow!

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean today chose Denver to host the Democrats' convention over New York City, the Associated Press reports!

I am SO PSYCHED!!! This will be August of 2008, the same month Denver Does Worldcon!!!!

My current plan is now to take my little trailer up to Denver and camp there for most of the month of August. Whee! This is going to be great!

One of our family's stock phrases is to quote the guy in the C. W. McCall song who says, "Y'know I'm not the type to complain...."

You know that about me, right?

So we have been HAUNTING and CALLING the local Wal-mart since last Friday when one of the clerks told us they were expecting a shipment of 300 showshovels. Same story every day, they weren't in yet.

This afternoon when I called, they told me to call back after 9, because there was a truck due in and they could tell me by then if there were any.

Well, yes. There WERE. When I called they had already gotten and sold three shopping carts full.

*sigh*

I guess we can plug on a while longer with our makeshift tools. We are probably not going to get THAT much snow out of the new storm on Saturday and Sunday.

And a snowshovel won't be much help against the 36 hours of freezing drizzle forecast to precede the snow anyway.

*extra heavy sigh*

But hey, at least the roads are currently more or less passable. The school bus DID get stuck near our corner on Monday. And although I was not sanguine about their plan when we saw the SECOND bus coming to get the first one out, it DID work. Just goes to show you, what do *I* know?

At least the Dish Network guy was finally able to get here today. We were missing the feed from one satellite since before Christmas, and OF COURSE it was the one with Mike's most favorite shows. Like The Weather Channel. But he replaced a dish component and a cable he thought must have been old enough to lasso dinosaurs with, and now it's working great!

So that's one good thing.

At least in this case. The three of us just expended a considerable number of ergs to create our experiment in solar power (and we shall not speak of my brief bout of hysteria when I lost my boot in the snow and had to get back to the house barefoot on one side). But there they are, two 10 x 25 foot rolls of heavy black plastic, weighted down by whatever we could dig out of the snow. (High wind warning tonight, PLUS they have adjusted the forecast of highs in the 40s for the next few days to not getting above freezing. Dang.)

Well, we gave it a shot. All we can do is wait and see.

Wal-mart continues to tease everyone by saying they are "expecting" *300* snowshovels on the "next" truck. So far, though, no joy in Snowshovelville.

But our trip there today was not wasted, as I was able to score two rolls of heavy-duty black plastic, 10 x 25 feet. The next few days are supposed to be sunny and above freezing, and I am hoping that solar energy will be as helpful in de-drifting the rest of our driveway as the propane torch was for smoothing off our steps.

This is the before and after shot of the back steps. You can see the portable propane tank in the day shot, on the left. Souvy was there scoping out the scene, but went back in right away and was no help at all. Mike was, though, so that worked.

I apologize for the junky look of the back porch, but last weekend was Free Dump Weekend and we were NOT free, being snowbound by the blizzard. The dryer is our old broken one, which someone was SUPPOSED to come pick up. Guess I should just give up and call the other appliance guy....

So, today was the day when teachers were to return to work from the Christmas vacation. Since Caro's dear darling car, the Nimbus '95, does not ACTUALLY fly (although it might have a go if it hit some of the ice potholes in the roads around here at the moment!), I drove her in to school. Mike came along too. Here they are at the school entrance.



I think I have mentioned the topic of storm shopping before. It was over a week since we last went grocery shopping, and naturally we now had a list of a few items that we were running low on. Butter, milk, bread, you know.

We were also under another winter storm watch today, and the long term forecast suggests another storm could be coming NEXT week.

So here is Mike in the Wal-mart parking lot, unloading our FIRST shopping cartful into Dreamcloud as I approach with the second....



Not too many other people were out driving around. Although not too many other people are as crazy as me.



Snow removal crew we came across on the way home. This was taken at about 11 am, and by the time Caro was ready to go home at four, these guys had COMPLETELY moved that long middle row of snow, about 9 blocks worth!



I did a lot of stuff today, but none of it was very interesting, except maybe the part where I stepped through an aquarium buried in the snow while I was looking for the flame thrower. Found it, so maybe tomorrow will be newsier.

As you know from my posts over the last few days, southeast Colorado now has a new industry to promote--skiing, snow boarding, ice-skating and slush-falling.

Behold the beautiful mountains of Lamar.


Okay, okay, it's not real mountains. It's the side of the road that leads to my house. That's not even where the snow is HIGHEST, mind. But there is only one lane, a car width wide, on the road to town, and since it was so narrow and bumpy and slushy, I didn't feel like I should stop at the part where the piled snow is WAY HIGHER THAN DREAMCLOUD ON BOTH SIDES for like a quarter-mile, just to take a picture.

As you can guess, we did end up escaping our drifty prison. Here is the shot of what we amateurs achieved in two days of digging.



This is what our new hero, Mark of the Prowers County road crew, did in about 8 minutes, thanks to Caro chasing him down and begging.



A small part of my inability to career cheerfully through the snow like they do on the commercials turned out to be a very soft right rear tire. Once I managed to drive off the last place I had been stuck onto the blessedly low snow driveway, I decided to try going to town to air it up.

This is what the sides of Main Street/Highway 50 & 287 looked like this afternoon. Well, the parts I saw, anyway.



Small towns like Lamar can drive you crazy, but it's the little things that remind me why I like it. Guys like Our Hero Mark. And the guy who got out of his car on the icy, slushy street, when we were all stopped at the light, to tell me my tire was really low. I did already know, but it was kind of him to take the trouble to warn me.

The reason we were all stopped at the light for a minute was because a small car waiting for the light was having trouble getting traction on the ice and moving forward once the light changed. Enter two boys carrying snow shovels, who had clearly been out making some cash. They ran over, climbed the snow ridge in the middle of the street, and helped push the car to get it rolling.

Here they are, ordinary, everyday hero boys, off to do more shoveling.

...the answer is, less than we would like.

With about an hour and a half of trying, I have been able to force Dreamcloud another, oh, 20 feet down the driveway. A mere 30-40 to go.

Mike and Caro are still outside trying to lower the snow level in the drive. I had to come in because at one point I was laying down on a blanket, using my hands to remove snow from underneath the body and wheels. This got my t-shirt all snowy. (No, I didn't have my coat zipped. It is a strange feeling to have your hands and feet snowy and cold, but be sweating too much to zip your jacket!) After a while, the show on my chestal area melted, which was odd, because usually we don't get snowmelt on the high peaks until spring....

Wet t-shirt contest when it's below freezing out...very bad idea.

So now I am sitting here typing with a heating pad clutched to my chest. Could be worse though. I could be the blanket, which is either frozen under the car or wrapped around an axle. Either way, it is out there and *I* am in here.

Stay tuned for more late breaking news as it develops.

I almost forgot today is/was Tune Tuesday!

This is a really nice one for the new year. That's what the lyrics have always reminded me of, anyway.

Michael Martin Murphey (John Denver backup vocals) - Swans Against the Sun
Click here to download from YouSendIt

"Well, this year
It is not clear
Just what ends here
And what's begun

We are bright storms,
Rising free forms
Wild swans against the sun."

What I also left almost too late to mention was that we have a bunch of those special listing day eBay things going off tomorrow, and some of them might be of interest to some of you. There's a bunch of assorted sets of leatherworking tools, three lots of nice glass beads, some books on making biodiesel (a useful hobby to take up!), two lots of Georgette Heyer books (which include some of the harder to find ones), and of course a boatload of other books and cool things.

Click here to see the listings!

I didn't get very much done yesterday on my JaNoWriMo project, but I DID start my word meter. It reflects the part of the next chapter that has been languishing on my various hard drives for years, but I added that onto the goal total, so it all works out even.

15,694 / 66,000 (23.8%)

I decided to try to be a little more physically productive today, so of course now that I am near the end of the day I am dwelling on what a dumb idea that was. I kind of overdid on the snow shoveling part. But at least I have something to show for my aching arms and back and legs. We can now open the front door, AND I drove Dreamcloud about 10 feet down the driveway before he high-centered on a drift I mis-estimated the depth of.

OHH WELLLL. Almost nothing in town is open anyway, from what we hear.

Now I am going to inflict you with picspam to distract me from my ohwoes.

This is the prettiest one.


Dreamie's 10 feet of progress.


I don't know how I got this effect. I was trying to take a pic of the little trench down the front steps Mike has been digging. Climber came running up into the shot, but she looks transparent, like a ghost dog!

Right now our New Year's wish is to get to leave the house at some point. This is our fourth day of being inside at home except for very brief snow viewing or moving trips, and we begin to yearn for the charming and exotic sights and sounds of the Wal-mart.

OH WELLLL. We do at least know we are well off, what with having power and food and the internet and all. We can at least glean snippets of news, like that at least one highway is open again, and some roofs of buildings collapsed in town, and the sheriff thinks everyone should STAY HOME a few more days because they are TIRED of rescuing the stuck.

Mike went for a short walk and came home to report a car abandoned up by the mailboxes, possibly blocking our road, which might explain the lack of snow plowing thus far. :/

I am at least catching up on a few things. I have just now completely finished uploading all FORTY of the old chapters of Neon Hearts, so I can start my JaNoWriMo project of adding yet more to the saga!

So, progress of a sort. Can't really ask for more than that from a New Year, eh?

Part 38--Growing Things: The Gen X students come for check-ups, and Xavier has a brilliant idea about a useful job for Cassie.

Part 39--The Best Defense: An innocent visit to the Danger Room turns into a nightmare for Cassie.

Part 40--Prelude: Uh-oh! X-Force is dropping by for a visit! Three teams at once strains even the X-mansion's resources!