I do not know if we will actually get an entire foot of snow during the Polar Vortex commonly known as Ion but it is definitely coming down. We have made one good pass at shoveling out and I expect some evening shoveling is in my future. So why is my loverly little thermometer proclaiming that it’s sunny? I do not know. Fortunately it has come to its senses and is now showing rain clouds.

I went to the Jackson Road Meijer early yesterday morning before the sun was up. That turned out to be a smart move because apparently everybody on earth panicked yesterday and went shopping to stock up on food and snow shovels. (Snow shovels, you’re wondering? You people live in the Great Lake State and you don’t have a snow shovel?) Anyway, I read that some people waited an hour and a half in line to check out. I did not wait at all at Zero Skunk 30. I went through the [deserted] express uscan even though I had more than 12 items. I did not buy a snow shovel.

So, people are panicky enough that there are now shortages of things at the local grokkery stores. Damn Arbor has some photooos of empty shelves at the Carpenter Road Meijer. I wanted to comment that the Plum Market is low on brussel sprouts but I [ahem] gave up trying to leave a comment. I can understand how a store could run out of milk, bread, eggs, anything but iceberg lettuce, and quinoa but I was surprised that there were only a few buckets of brussel sprouts left. We like brussel sprouts here but I thought it was one of those veggies that most people love to hate.

This is certainly turning out to be a bad snowstorm but it is nothing like the five feet of snow that Sault Ste. Siberia got back in December 1995. I wrote about that storm a few months ago. Here’s a more comprehensive account from people who were actually there. Hint, they called out the National Guard.

Anyway, we took a river ride and walked the trails around Barton Dam this morning before the snow really got going. It was a loverly walk until we walked through a thicket of cattails and suddenly my right foot went through the ice into cold ucky muddy water. I had no idea we were over water (I knoooowww…) or I would not have followed the GG onto that particular path. For some unknown reason, I had the foresight to pull a pair of Smartwool socks on over my tights before we left the house. Between that stroke of luck and the fact that it was 30 degrees, my foot stayed warm.

Hunkered down for the moment. The GG is going to barbecue chicken on the grill (yes, in the snow, in his Stormy Kromer hat) when he gets done pacing in front of the Green Bay game. I am definitely planning on telecommuting tomorrow. Our water pipes will be fine unless we lose power, which we usually don’t (but fingers crossed of course). You can’t live in the Great Lake State without central heat and we definitely have it as well as the associated thermostat wars. I know there are areas of the country where central heat is not ubiquitous but I always fergit because I live here…

If you are in this storm, please hunker down if you can.

Love y’all,
Kayak Woman

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 5th, 2014 at 6:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.