Snow Driving

The view from our apartment after last night's snow fall

I have tried a few times in the past few weeks to contribute to this blog but every time I begin to write an entry I get bored with myself and stop. You will be glad that I didn't post any of my most recent compositions. They went a little something like this "Today I put a load of darks in the wash. Luke ate 47 times. I am very tired."

It is a cold snowy day here in Kansas. I have our thermostat set to island temperature so that I can still wear shorts at my leisure. Acutally, I am super paranoid about Luke being too cold so I make sure our apartment feels like it sits directly on the equator. Do you know what direction our toilets would flush? Me neither. Anyway, Luke sweats a lot.

Last night I decided to tackle some Christmas shopping. I geared up and exited our apartment. To my surprise it was snowing. I thought, "This is great! What perfect weather for holiday shopping!" Then I thought, "I've never driven in snow, I wonder if it's difficult? (The answer is yes) I've driven in a hurricane so this should be a breeze. (foolish)"

I realize that driving in snow is a competition to see who can drive the slowest. I won. Wait, no. I came in 2nd. I was grateful to the person who won because If they had not been driving 35 MPH below the speed limit, I would have certainly hit them when I did a 180 and wound up facing against the flow of traffic. Fortunately I was only going 15 MPH so I just bounced off a curb and didn't hurt the car. The car that I just avoided hitting also hydroplaned which I may have been responsible for since I think they broke suddenly when they saw me drifting. So, we're good friends now. A bit shaken and teary, I called Joel for support. I decided, only 5 snow-driving minutes away from my destination, that I better just turn around and idle home with my hazard lights on and never drive again. I understand now that the term, "Florida Ice" was coined by someone who doesn't know what the word "ice" means.

As an end to our evening, Joel asked me "If I always cried a lot or if it was just since we've been married." I don't cry a lot. He cries a lot.

NFL game

The players were frozen like this until spring.

I went to my first NFL game this weekend. The Chiefs were playing the Broncos and Dr. Durrie asked me if I wanted to join him. If Durrie asked me to join him in sitting on a block of ice in a walk-in freezer and focus on something incomprehensible for two hours, I would do it. Hyperbole? No, it was very very cold and football is harder for me to understand than Bob Dylan lyrics.

Durrie said that I should "bundle up" because it was going to be cold, so I wore a coat. Midway through the second quarter (for the uninitiated, a "quarter" in football equals 1000 minutes), I realized "bundling up" means a different thing in Kansas than it does in Florida. My bones hurt. When he asked if I was cold, I said, "Nnnnn." Then I asked if they make the football out of some kind of shatter-resistant material.

The Chiefs lost. They lost bad. Everyone in the stands booed their own quarterback at several points. It takes a lot of emotional fortitude to be the Chiefs' quarterback. After a fumble at the end of the third quarter, Durrie asked if I wanted to go. I tried to say that I was the only person in the stadium that wanted to leave more than our quarterback, but I said, "Nnnnn."

I love hanging out with Dr. Durrie. On the way home, he said more wise things than most people say in their whole life. He knows more about refractive surgery than probably anyone in the world, and I want to know that much too. What would you do to spend time with someone from whom you have that much to learn? I'd watch football in the freezing cold.