I was so tired when I got home today. I knew that learning a new job would make me tired at times but this afternoon, it snuck up on me. I was energized all weekend and I was energized driving up to the Yoop yesterday and I even walked around town through the snow and I still felt pretty energized. And I was energized enough to get up at 6:30 or whatever this morning and walk around town again. In the dark in my balaclava and snowpants. Driving back down from the Yoop was a mini-repeat of yesterday. Meaning that there was lake effect snow in the same places but much, much less. I let the GG start driving and worked on my unfinished prodject until West Branch, then I took over. I dunno. I promise I was not drinkin’ or anything but I was getting sleepy this afternoon. I don’t usually do that when I’m driving. I finally finished the rest of the GG’s coffee and that helped.

And then, when we got home, I sat myself down with my computer and started to get settled in. First there was a whole bunch of rummaging going on in MY KITCHEN! I refrained from asking. Until the clunking and clanking and banging around began. WHAT ARE YOU DOING??!!?? Defrosting the refrigerator was the answer. I thought this refrigimatator was frost-free! Why do we have to defrost it? This was *not* a project I wanted to get involved in. My first refrigerator of my “adult” life was here on the Planet Ann Arbor when I moved into The Marquis’s old apartment on Seventh St. That refrigerator had a freezer with these little home-made wooden doors that closed in the middle with a hook. Our next apartment was a wee bit more upscale and I think that refrigerator even had those little slots for individual eggs, but maybe I’m not remembering. Then we moved to the Landfill. Our own house. A real house. With an ancient refrigerator. And stove. I still have the stove. I LOVE the stove. I do NOT want one of those stoves with digital controls. Like The Commander has. Or the one at Houghton Lake. But the refrigerator was a different story. Once, I was convinced that there was a wounded seagull inside it. Frequently, I would have to mop up an entire inch of water from underneath the bottom crisper. That’s a lot of water and I have no idea how it got there. It didn’t spill out of anything. The winter of 1997 was the worst. The refrigerator was 31 years old by that time and I had just about had it. It seemed like every time I came home in the evening, the GG had the blasted refrigerator pulled out into the middle of the kitchen to work on it. It’s not a huge kitchen and I couldn’t even walk around it. I think we were finally just about ready to bite the bullet and buy a new one when the ice storm hit. It was a HUGE ice storm. Trees were down everywhere. Lost of people lost power. We didn’t lose power initially but a power surge that occurred two days after the storm took down a couple of computers here and a printer* and THE REFRIGERATOR!!! Guess what? Our homeowner’s insurance paid for a new one. Sometimes lame procrastinating penny pinchers like us win one. So, new refrigerator 11 years ago (yes, it was 11). Will it last as long as the crappy old one? How long are refrigerators supposed to last? I dunno. Heck, I guess it’s already lasted around a third of the time the old one did. Why do I still call the blasted thing new? I do know that I had to go out while the defrost operation was taking place today. That whole deal was not in my plan for the afternoon and I just couldn’t deal with the chaos. So I left and went to the grokkery store and then took a walk.

I am really happy that MLK Day gave both the GG and I a paid holiday from work because that enabled us to more easily transport The Commander from the Yoop to the Planet and back. But I have to wonder if this holiday from work really has anything to do with Dr. King’s vision. Lots of people are getting a holiday from work for this and I’m not sure Dr. King’s dream included anything about rednecks from southern Michigan hooking up their sno-mo trailers to their twuks and heading up the I75 SUV Speedway for a nice long party weekend. Er, and occasionally going *off* the I75 SUV Speedway because of, um, maybe overestimating the vee-hickle’s capabilities and, um driving a bit too fast. Sorry you guys. My bro’ was a snomo guy and he owned twuks and I loved riding with him and I miss those old twuks (but not the sno-mos) and I love y’all. But I’m just sayin’.

So, as we were dropping down through the Eastern Yoop this morning, a Moosonee weather report came on. I’ve never heard a weather report for Moosonee before. Moosonee is not accessible via road. Who the heck would want to plow that length of road at this time of year. You can take a train there or fly out of Timmins.

*Yes, we had a surge protector in place. It did not work. Beware.

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