All in a Garden Green

Got an appointment for snow tires. Hill is sheer ice, thanks to the melting yesterday, covered with a layer of slightly sticky (but not sticky enough) snow. Even kurlon couldn't get Rosie to climb the hill, so she's waiting at the bottom till I get home with a tow strap and we can hook up to the HiHy and hopefully get her to the top of the road.

Done with Winter now.

ETA 4:22PM - Rosie has been retrieved and is now on her way to Town Fair Tire for new snowshoes... I am going to take a nap, since I don't remember allergies coming with full-body-aches that last 2 days... bleh. Done with Winter now.

The journey south, then northward through the ice-covered land was amazing.

Snapped quite a few photos through my (mostly clean) windshield and driver's side window as I was driving down the highways of life yesterday... Ice ice ice everywhere on the trees in Maine, until I went through the York tolls, and then nothing. Perfectly clear. Huh. Into NH onto 101, icy trees came again into view where I expected them to, as the north side of the highway just does not get sun. They glittered, though, backlit by the risen sun. I have been north on I-89 before, but had never driven it by myself. Armed with a bagel, iced coffee, and a mostly full tank of gas, I quite enjoyed the gently curving road, lined on both sides with stone, trees, and of course, ice. The damage and broken limbs along my route was not all that apparent in the daytime. Everything seemed OK.

Regional fencing practice was wonderful, if not smaller than we'd hoped. Definitely worth the 3 hour trek. gryphonsinsitre, Quinn, Robert, Ogedai, Natalia, Caine (all the way from NY, who also did not have power...), Jocelyn, Batty, Frenya (not fencing, gonna have a little baby soon... :) ), and I had a nice afternoon stabbing each other and doing some melee drills. Got some good lessons and instruction from Caine. It's nice to fence some different people, and since I skipped practice this past Tuesday, was good to get some activity in (not that 7 hours of shoveling wasn't good... ok. It wasn't.) I couldn't help but think, though, that we might have had one more person, if Dartmouth hadn't been so dumb... am I right, sprirtwolf? ;)

Dinner afterward for most of us, at a lovely little Irish pub in downtown Lebanon. Got advice that perhaps Warner would be a good place for me to get more gas for the ride home, as they were usually cheapest. Excellent. Got off at the Warner exit (about 20 miles from Concord), went in the direction of the gas stations, and realized after about 30 seconds of driving that I had just passed them both, and they were quite dark. Oh my. Warner without power. Now that I had time to think about it, and calculate how far I could go on what I had left in my tank, I realized that I hadn't seen many lights at all on my way down the interstate...

Most of New Hampshire is still dark.

Got to Concord, plenty of fuel still, but after driving in circles for 5 minutes, found a (cheap! $1.55!) gas station, filled up, and called kurlon to let him know where I was, and if he'd rather I come home instead of heading to anna_mickel's for some Hot Tub Time. He said, "nope, I'm fine, your dad's keeping me company." ---mind goes blank, skips, restarts-- What..? My dad? Why is dad there? Searching for a generator... waiting for the one to come into Sears that he reserved... Oh, my. Said he probably (hopefully) wouldn't be there still in an hour and a half when I got there, so go ahead to the tub...

I did. It was wonderful, relaxing, just what I needed. Max, Mickel, and I saw Geminids from the comfort of the hot tub, including the most spectacular meteor I have ever witnessed. A true fireball, streaking bright blue-white across the sky, finally burning up in a burst of orange. Gorgeous. Went home. The drive all along 202, in both dark New Hampshire and slightly more well-lit Maine, was amazing. Only 2 patches of ice that made things... interesting... and a couple downed power lines in NH. The sides of the roads, though, looked like they were covered in shattered glass. Trees bent over everywhere. One glowing window showed which home had a generator in the neighborhood.

I got the rest of dad's story this morning... Most of New Hampshire is still dark. The neighborhood is a disaster. Our house is OK, but very very cold. He made some pretty good time yesterday morning, and was in Portland about when I was leaving. Home Depot was supposed to have a shipment of generators coming in sometime that day, and he was getting in line. Many hours of waiting later, with no truck in sight and nobody giving any indication of when it would be, he came here. Was able to reserve a generator at Sears, was told it would arrive "sometime today". One thing led to another, though, and when the shipment finally arrived at 10:30, he decided it would be better to spend the night and get a fresh start in the morning. I woke up when my fish tank light clicked on, and headed downstairs, in the hope that he hadn't left yet, and I could spend some time with my daddy...

He's tired... and his castle is cold, and the forests around it have fallen. Trees pulled right out by their roots. The ground isn't frozen, and they just can't take that much weight. They have phones again, the landline came back sometime yesterday. By now, he should be just getting back home, hopefully not to frozen pipes... It's going to be a while before power comes back on, they think. We are so lucky here...

( On a completely unrelated note, )

Here's a wonderful picture of what we've gotten (snow), what we're getting (ice/freezing rain/ICK)*, and what will continue to fall over the next several hours (rain, in theory done by 9:00). Then it will freeze, solid, probably, and the parking lot will become a lovely skating rink. If only I still had my ice skates... I miss my ice skates...

Work from Home in Pajamas Day is a partial success. Am getting actual work done, and spent the first half in comfy pajamas, until the landlord rang the doorbell and asked us to move our cars... grump. Better to get the snow out of the way before it freezes solid, I suppose, but who knows where all the water is going to go.

*do note, in the central part of the state, right around where J's parents are (Bangor), there's a lovely little dip that is supposedly still snow... heh... weather patterns are funny. In truth, though, I'd rather have a foot of snow than what's falling from the sky right now.