Morning Free Association: Win at Ottawa

I just realized that the Russsian women’s hockey team got knocked out of the quarter-finals of the Olympics by Switzerland, a bottom-3 team, who the US beat 8-0 and the Canadians beat 12-1 in the preliminary round.

My joy is shameful.
I will consider it a consolation prize in case the Canadians kick the Americans butts in the Gold medal game.

This actually puts Switzerland in contention for the Bronze.

Ok, I officially hate February.
I mean, I like the Superb Owl, and I don’t mind a little valentine’s day, but this is when the winter really starts to get to me.

We’re running out of fuel to heat the house, and we’ve got a pellet stove, so I need to order a shipping pallet full of pellets. But I need it to be delivered somewhat close to the house, so they drive a pallet truck up the hill of our driveway. Lowes is really good about that, but I need to plan around the weather, because I can’t ask a guy to drive up a steep hill covered in ice or packed snow. I delayed last week because I couldn’t get the ice cleared out in a timely manner. Then the next date was this morning, but I had to delay again, because the latest snow was going to keep going until this morning.

Also, we got a bunch o’ snow going into last week end. Very difficult to clean up because the bottom was icy, like crunchy cement. I cleared off the cars, and all the stuff I knocked off fell in piles on the driveway, and instantly froze onto the crunchy mess on either side of the cars.

After finally getting some warm weather, I was able to clean up the most traveled icy spots. But there’s a bunch of snow still on the lawn and snow banks flanking the drive. Well, the dog has to do his business somewhere. So he drags me into the trees around the yard, and I continuously get smacked in the head by branches which are several inches lower because of the snow I’m walking on. Due to the warming, there is an icy coat on all that snow, then we get a fresh pile of fluffy snow on top of it. Now when the dog drags me out, I’m hard pressed to keep from slipping & falling on the hidden ice. Yesterday, I went out to pick up one of Boomer’s yard deposits, and I bring a small container of old tomato sauce, with the intention of disposing of it. I walk out onto the yard, and slip & fall on the ice, spilling the sauce spectacularly.*

The next time I take Boomer out, he’s licking at something on the ground – it’s the biggest of the frozen puddles of sauce from the previous evening.

Then this morning, I get up early & spend an hour cleaning up the latest snow. I was expecting 3-4 inches, but we got 7. Great. I hop i the car to get a coffee & donuts, and I keep smelling something vaguely familiar, then I realize that there are splatters of tomato sauce dried onto both of my coat sleeves.

After being out for some 45 minutes, I get back home, and there’s an inch of snow on the driveway again, having blown down from the trees.

*No, really, exactly like that. Now picture having a poorly covered styrofoam cup of tomato sauce in one hand.