Snowbound!

Well, no, not really. The boy’s school still isn’t open although work is, so poof goes a vacation day for me. The temperatures hit nearly forty yesterday before dropping overnight and today we won’t get out of the 20s.  Tomorrow we might hit a low of zero which is unheard of for this area.  Saturday will be 40 and rainy.

The primary roads are clear due to a combination of plowing and sanding the streets, above-freezing temperatures, and road traffic.  The secondary roads (about 80% of the roads in the area) are not.  The county does not treat the secondary roads but does “plow” them with what I can only assume are repurposed Zambonis. Not so great for people trying to navigate, you know, neighborhoods and stuff, but pretty decent if you own your own curling rocks.  Well done, VDOT!

I inspected the roads for drivability a couple of times over the last few days - just testing a couple of curvy, icy miles to the first treated street and back.  Crummy with a rear-wheel-drive vehicle like mine but not impossible if you know what you are doing.  The guy behind me on my last trip was riding my bumper while fishtailing his likewise-rear-wheel-drive truck all over the place.  He was close enough where I could get a good look at his face in my rearview mirror. The expression was an awesome combination of “C’mon, man, go! We gots thuh green flag, Yankee!” and “Holy [deleted]! ahm-uh gonna die!”  I wish him well and my prayers go out to his eventual victims.

Oh, on one of our walks (dragging the boy on the sled) we watched a lady throw handfuls of swimming pool salt onto the seven inches of snow and ice that covered her unshoveled sidewalk.  And you thought I was kidding earlier…

But enough with the grief.  When a three-day weekend becomes an unwilling six-day weekend you gotta fill the time somehow:

Built a snow fort.  It is big enough for three six-to-eight year olds to sit in comfortably.  It has a domed roof that is bolstered by a single 1x6.  Yes, that is cheating, and it is nowhere near the epic awesomeness of the ones my sister and her friends make.  Their igloos have wet bars!  I… I can’t compete with that…  But I gotta consider the safety of the end-users, here, you know?

Built a Lego scene.  Friction between the team members (me and my son) over the motif resulted in a compromise that somewhat disagrees with historical canon.  It’s fun to play with, though.

Solved some local puzzle-based Geocaches (Crop Circle [GC4HB71], The Red Herring [GC4JTE4], Puzzle Monster [GC4M67N], and Sudoku Challenge #1 [GC2QGRQ]). I have been avoiding these but I will officially sign my name to those logs when I head out this weekend.  You may start the ticker tape parade for me at your leisure.

Made some crayon cars using the Crayola Crayon Factory.  These are now in the boy’s geocaching bag for trading.

Discovered that letting kids use the dictation feature of this computer is a terrible, disturbing idea (autocorrect has not only been drinking but it seems it is a horrible potty mouth as well) but that is a topic for another post.

Did the diorama set Santa brought the boy for Christmas.  I think it will eventually be the scene of a dinosaur attack on a bunch of toy soldiers.  Again, another post.

Watching movies, playing Xbox games, practicing guitar, studying for a spelling test, and writing this post were some… wait… wait… I just got another text from the school.  They are cancelled again for Friday…

No. 

No no no no no no no no no.  Enough is enough. I’m calling shenanigans, here.  Mom!  Hey, mom!  It’s your turn.  You are officially tagged in.  

I’m going to work.