Ice has been falling from the sky since 8:30 this morning, minus taking off the noon hour for lunch. This is what my front porch step looks like:

So sparkly. So terrifying.

Awhile back, my Yooper mother-in-law made wise about us “southerners” closing schools when we have an inch of snow, while they function just fine with 3,847 feet of white stuff on the ground. To which my mother replied, “Ever try to drive on a two-inch sheet of ice?” or something to that effect.

We’re not having a snow day today; we’re having an ice day. I’d decided to keep Clara Jane home from daycare about ten minutes before her teacher called to tell me they were going to close due to weather.

Oh, how I love snow/ice day! I throw the rules out the window on snow/ice day. We can watch too much TV, eat junk food, play a little loose and free with naptime. What does it matter? We’re not going anywhere!

The day started with Clara Jane asking to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas during breakfast. We piled onto the couch, she with her apple, cheddar cheese, and sippy of milk; I with my steel-cut oatmeal and coffee, for that is the snow/ice day way.

About a year ago, on a similar snow day, I made a post about making cookies and watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” with Clara Jane. Today was no different, but completely different. I had a job for us.

I’ve been in a bit of a quandry about our Christmas tree this year. Clara Jane loves Christmas trees with a depth that borders on idolotry. I’m cool with that. The problem is, our tree (which we haven’t set up yet; I refuse to buy a tree prior to December) is always decorated in tastefully matched silver and purple glass bulbs that we got for a wedding gift. Very breakable glass bulbs. On one hand, I don’t want to deny my little tree-hugger. On the other, I don’t want to spend the next month with shards of glass wedged in my feet.

Solution: let’s make salt dough ornaments! Better yet, let’s paint the salt dough ornaments purple and silver so I’m not completely sacrificing my pretty, pretty ornaments! And even more better, making salt dough ornaments will give us something to do when we hit Hour Three of snow/ice day and I start freaking out because we’re snow/icebound.

Oh, what a difference a year makes.
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Do you have any idea how pissed off I’ll be if I wake up with no power tomorrow because of the massive winter storm that’s coming to destroy us all and I’m unable to post? You have no idea. Winter’s wrath? Nothing compared to Robin’s Wrath From Posting Every Damn Day for a Month and Getting Canned on Day 30.

Remember the deal with NaBloPoMo? How, if you didn’t post daily, you should at least comment a bunch for those of us who are posting daily? You’ve totally fallen down on the jobs, you lazy slacks. Delurk, dammit.

I have a new sewing machine, which I ordered last week. I’m thrilled because, unlike my old sewing machine, this one doesn’t weigh as much as my truck. It’s plastic, and it feels flimsy after years of sewing on a machine made from Army tank metal, but I don’t care because I can pick it up without the need for a lifting brace.

I wasn’t home to receive my sewing machine delivery, and when I saw the UPS sticker on my door, I figured I’d have to wait until tomorrow to get my machine. Not the case, as the UPS carrier probably doesn’t want to navigate the steep, usually unsalted road in front of my house. The note simply said, “under back porch”.

I don’t have a back porch.
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I’d hoped to write one of my long-winded, thoughtful, possibly humorous posts today, probably about earplugs, but that’s so not going to happen. I’m exhausted. Still feeling slightly crappy, and Clara Jane’s still snotting all over the place. I spent the day trying to get everything back to normal after the long weekend away, which means shitloads of laundry. No real break, since The Snotmeister 2004 opted to not nap today.

Yeah. Brain-dead. That’s me.

Luckily, my old pal Kara Joy, who I’ve known since we weren’t a whole lot older than our kids are now, tagged me to talk about how weird I am. I’m pretty sure I did a similar meme a year or so back. Once I answer this one, I’ll dig up the URL for the old one and post the link so you can get a double-dose of my weirdness. We’ll see if I repeat.

Are y’all getting bored with this? You’re getting bored with this. I can tell. You’re all very quiet. I don’t blame you one bit at all. I’d be sick of me, too, if I’d read 28 days of me.

Anyway, back to the meme. Here’s the rules: Each player of this game starts with the “6 weird things about you”. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says “you are tagged” in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

I normally don’t tag, but I’m going to tag some of my fellow NaBloPoMoers to give them a boost. I know I needed it.
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Yeah, I know the content has been sketchy at best. Busy weekend, busy day, and not a lot of energy. I’ve managed to catch my 8th (or thereabout) coldish-type malady of the season. Nothing bad, just enough to make me want to lie on the couch and do nothing. But I’ll be damned if I give up on NaBloPoMo with less than a week to go.

• I faced a bit of my own latant racism today, and I didn’t like it. We’re having some cable problems that needed to be fixed this morning. The tech called beforehand, and when I heard his accent and Middle Eastern name, I had a bit of a start. Then I promptly flogged myself with a bungee cord for being such an asshole. Of course he was a nice guy who didn’t attempt to blow up my house with a cable van full of fertilizer. I’ve been bothered all day about my snap judgement, even though I just as quickly snapped back to rational reality.
• If I regularly comment on your blog and haven’t lately, there’s a good chance I haven’t been getting your RSS feeds. It seems that Bloglines, my usual RSS reader, has crapped out on me. I’m in the process to switching to Google Reader, but I doubt I’ll be able to catch up on the mountains of posting I’ve missed. Likewise, Gmail has been eating the occasional email, particularly comments on my blog. So, if it seems like I’m ignoring you, I’m probably not. I’m just at the mercy of cranky technology.
• Speaking of cranky, Clara Jane’s been a pill today, which is making me cranky.

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We are home, where no one will fart on a loved one, and no one will drool into the mouth of a loved one.

It’s good to be back, although I’ll miss laughing at the farts and drool, since I wasn’t the recipient of either. Good thing Christmas is only a month away and we can do it all over again.

This has to be quick because 1) B.’s redoing my mom’s network and things aren’t going well, and 2) I’ve got one hour before the day ends.

Tonight we had a little gathering with my dad’s side of the family. My eldest aunt is showing signs of age, illness, stress, and just the general consequences of leading a rough life. She and her husband live part-time in Branson, Missouri, and they’re always begging family members to join them. Personally, I’d rather cross the gate into Hell instead of going into the Branson city limits.

My mom had warned me that my aunt is working in a clothing outlet store and keeps encouraging her to purchase a particular item for me. Tonight, though, I got the sales pitch first-hand.

“I know you like peacocks,” she started. And I do. Somewhat. I like vintage peacock chenille bedspreads. That’s about it. “We’ve got this cape with a peacock on it at the store, and I keep telling your mom to get it for you, since you like peacocks so much. There’s this great big ol’ gal who comes into the store a lot, and she wears hers all the time. You should get one. They’re only 70 dollars.”

I think she’s on to something. From now on, I won’t leave the house unless I’m wearing a cape, adorned with at least one colorful bird. Maybe more, as that’s the great big ol’ gal way.

Seriously. If I eat anything else for the rest of my life, I’ll die. I’m sure of it. I think my spleen has been forced out of my body by the 3.8 pounds of cornbread stuffing I’ve consumed in the past 24 hours. However, I promised to tell you about some stuff, and I intend to do so, hopefully before my fingers expand to a size too large to be accomodated by a standard keyboard.

Sadly, I will not be poking fun at Two-Finger Bill and the Harmonica Man. Today we had a big family lunch at the cafe where they hang out. It was just Two-Finger Bill, and he was crying. Nothing breaks my heart quite like someone sad, all alone in a restaurant. I overheard the server consoling him, and it was obvious someone died. No word on whether it was Harmonica Man or not. Regardless, I can’t make fun of someone when they’ve been all human like that.

I can, however, make fun of my family.

I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this, but in my family, when dinner’s complete, everyone under the age of 50 disappears, leaving clean-up duty to the moms and old ladies. I know. I know. We’re terrible human beings and need to be horse-whipped. Wait here and I’ll go get the whip for you.

I blame this on the fact that, before Clara Jane was born, the last baby born in our family arrived in 1981. This lack of children has allowed us, the last generation of children, to remain as such well into adulthood. Either that, or we’re just a bunch of lazy assholes content to let our mothers, grandmother, and great-aunt all the hard work.

Really, I’d like you to smack me.

Yesterday, my mom informed B., my cousin Travis, The Cuz and I that we were going to be on clean-up duty. First we tried to convince her that we all had pressing engagements to attend at 12:30. When that didn’t work, we tried our usual tactic of lying on the couch while our overfed carcasses bloated. Not exactly a good tactic, but we really couldn’t muster the energy to do much else. We were shooed into the kitchen, and rightfully so.

We restrained ourselves for a full five minutes before food started being flung:
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I’m far too triptophaned out to do any justice to … what was I saying? Right. So here’s a list of things I’m going to try to tell you tomorrow:

• Cleaning the kitchen. With photos! It was that exciting. Really.
• Two-Finger Bill and the harmonica player.
• Circuit penis.
• Paper plates in the dishwasher.
• Downtown in the hometown.
• Horse shit.
• High blood pressure diagnosed by one of the “Trading Spaces” designers who was scarfing down pizza with her family at the time.
  

Yep, that’s pretty much Thanksgiving in these parts.

This is why I don’t like to grocery-shop in my neighbor.

Today, I had a big jelly-making marathon ahead of me, but lacked a red bell pepper for a batch to Thai pepper jelly. I made a quick run to nearest store to grab one. $1.59 for one pepper. Sucks, but I understand. They’re out of season, transportation costs are up, and the past few years have been bad for pepper crops. That’s exactly what I expected to pay.

Got to the checkout. While ringing up the guy in front of me, the cashier looked at me and my lone pepper. “We have those?” she said.

“Um, yeah.”

“I thought we only sold those in packs of three. How much is that?”

“$1.59, and only the green peppers are in packs. Colored peppers are sold loose.”

“$1.50?!?! Why do you have just one? Why aren’t you getting the whole pack?”

“Because they’re not in a pack and I only need one,” I said, just wanting to take my damn pepper home.

Meanwhile, the old man behind me is offer helpful tips like, “It costs a dime! It’s so expensive because they grew it on Mars! Gimme a quarter for it!”

The cashier got the produce guy’s attention – mind you, all of this is transpiring while the guy in front of me waits for his order to be rung up. It wasn’t even my turn yet. “How much are these peppers? And don’t they come in packs of three?” she asked the produce guy.

“They’re $1.59, and they’re sold single,” he said. I’m sure his eye-roll wasn’t directed at me, but instead at the cashier, who hadn’t even bothered to look up the code on the pepper to see for her damn self how much it costs.

With this gal working the day before Thanksgiving, it’s gonna be a loooooooooong day.
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Spotted this morning at the fancypants intersection of Lindbergh and Ladue Road in the most fancypants part of St. Louis:

Pretty much self-explanatory, don’t you think? Actually, it’s not. You know I want to know why someone’s hauling a dead deer around the toniest part of town. I’m guessing the driver didn’t pick this bad boy up at a pre-Thanksgiving sale/tea up the street at Neiman-Marcus.
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