I suppose I am thankful that I have a place to hunker down during this storm. Bobby used to tell me all the time that they haven’t had snow here since he moved down nearly 10 years ago -- and told me this story. When he and Kerry finally moved into their home and had their first snowfall, Bobby was out in the driveway breaking his back to get it all shoveled. As he was doing so, he noticed that not one of his neighbors was out shoveling their driveway. He soon found out why. By 1:00, all the snow had melted. After that, he mailed his snow shovel back to Connecticut. Well, this ain’t one of those normal Virginia Coast storms. I just took Hope out and I am guessing that there is at least six inches, possibly more and it is not supposed to stop until after midnight. It is deep enough to make it very difficult to walk in. Something tells me I won’t be leaving here until Monday. It is not supposed to get above freezing until Tuesday. Didn’t George Washington cross the Potomac in a storm like this?
This is a picture out Karen’s window at about 8:00 this morning:
The last time I stayed here, I nearly froze to death because the building has, what I assume is, a cement slab foundation. The floor is brutal cold. Last month, I had to get up in the middle of the night and drag my electric blanket in from the van. It still took all night and half the next day before my “bed” got warm. This time I was smart. I brought in the electric blanket first. But alas, it did not work. Again, I had yet another sleepless night because I could not warm up. I fear my little electric throw bit the dust.
This morning I rearranged the blankets so that the electric one was not directly on the carpeting. It’s been on all day and there is still no heat coming out of it. I guess I will have another sleepless night unless I sleep with all my clothes on.
Every day I find more and more things that I cannot do without my computer. Yesterday's and today's dilemma: no TV. I brought my TV receiver, but I did not bring the software disk. So yesterday, I spent a good lot of the day looking for freebe software that I could download so I can watch TV. Today, I have the software, but no antenna. I also cannot seem to hook up Frann and Lane's loaner computer to Karen's Internet, so I am using Karen's very slow, very odd laptop. And the electricity went out at least four times this morning.
Since Karen has not moved in yet, there is no food, no cooking utensils, no sofa to sit on, no TV. At least I have Internet service to keep me occupied. I tried to make breakfast this morning, which consisted of eggs, bacon, and toast. Apparently I didn't bring in everything that I needed from the van the first three trips out there, because as I tried to make breakfast, I realized there was no butter or oil and no toaster. I couldn't find the small frying pan I gave her last month. I found a very large, deep set frying pan in the oven. When I pulled it out, water splashed all over the floor. Will someone please tell me why you would leave a pan full of water in the oven????
I managed to make my eggs and semi-toasted my bread in the pan after the eggs were cooked. I then found out Karen has no eating utensils. I found a plastic fork, knife, and soup spoon and I melted the fork while trying to remove the bacon from the pan.
I am trying to do everything in slow motion today to fill in the day. Hope and Olly are snuggled up on my makeshift bed, with Olly lying across my legs. I may follow in their activities and take another nap. Bed time is a long ways away. Karen was going to stop in if the roads weren't too bad; but they are, so I doubt if we'll get together this trip. At least I have a semi-warm roof over my head and I am not out camping in this crap.
I dragged in about as much stuff from the Van of Discovery as I’m going to bring in. One of my friends e-mailed me and said, “Can you drive the van of discovery into the house? It might be easier.” What can be better than a friend with a sense of humor to cheer you up? If I bring in any more of my stuff, it will take me a full day to pack the van back up again.
To keep myself occupied, I took three naps, checked my e-mails, wrote up the last three days’ adventures for my blog, had fifteen cups of tea, walked Hope twice, and finally got my computer hooked up to Karen’s Internet access point. It is now nearly 6:00. I don’t know where the day went.
This is a picture of the Karen’s driveway at 4:00 this afternoon:
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