Blog of a Newly Minted Housewife

Quite a change

Things were still fairly chill around here yesterday. It was 34 or 35 degrees farenheit at noontime, and there were still chunks of ice on the lawn. I didn't go outside again until after dark, and I bundled up before I opened the door, preparing myself for the cold east wind. What I got instead was a waft of tropical air. I did a double take and checked the thermometer. 56 degrees.

I'm not complaining, mind you. I was just unprepared, that's all.

It's 62 outside right now, and dry. Though there are thick gray clouds overhead, so the "dry" part could change soon. People had warned me about the changeable weather in Portland, but I didn't really believe them. The TV meteoroligists say the warm, wet trend should continue through the week. Perhaps it will give my tulips the chance to finish poking through the soil, something they had just started to do before the ice storm.

I'm so happy I could share this exciting time with you, talking about the weather. ;-)

More Icy Photos

Things are starting to warm up, but that has only made it more slick outside, as the quarter-inch of ice covering the road now has a thin layer of water on top of it. You know how an ice cube slides really easily across a formica table once it's melted just a bit? Yeah, it's like that outside. I managed to take some more photos, and if I get the chance (and decide to take a chance on not getting injured) I'll go out later to take more. Big hunks of ice have already falled from the power lines outside my apartment, and I can see out my windows now...

I had a box of things for charity sitting on my porch. It's sat there for a month or more without being disturbed, but apparently last night some punks decided it was too quiet and they needed to destroy something. The box was gone this morning, and the debris is across the street in my neighbor's driveway and yard. I'll go clean it up when it gets slushy instead of slick outside. What really peeves me is they appear to have smashed a perfectly good (though old) inkjet printer, something that could have gone to good use. Jerks.

During the week, I noticed my early-flowering bulbs were starting to poke through under the spent annuals in the strip of soil next to my porch. I hope they survived being sealed under half an inch of ice.

My neighbor's car - I would have photographed my own, but it would have meant leaving the stability of my dry porch. For this, I only had to lean.

These rocks are under a spot where rain drains from my porch roof. They look like they are just wet, but trust me, they are coated with ice.

I never ride this bike, and I won't any time soon. I'm glad the vandals didn't try to destroy it, too.

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EDIT: I managed to get out onto the street a little later, using towels. It was still too slippery to walk normally, but by laying down two alternating towels, I was able to get across the street to the remains of my box and pick things up. It looks like nothing got smashed, actually, so if they dry out OK, the electronics might still work. And I managed to get some more photos.

Here is my car, starting to thaw. Things are actually prettier when they start to thaw, because it is easier to see the ice.

The contrast isn't great, but if you look close, you can see how thick the ice is here. I managed to break a piece off the edge of the sidewalk.

And here you can see the half-pipes of ice that fell from the power lines onto the grass.

So, this is why they call it "frosty"

I grew up in California. Once or twice every winter, we'd have a "freeze" and the weatherman would warn us to bring tender plants inside or wrap them for protection. The morning of the freeze, there would be white frost on the lawns and the roofs, and if you got up early, you might have to scrape some ice from your windsheild before you drove to work.

We had a frosted window in our bathroom, and although I knew, logically, why is was called frosted, I didn't until this morning really understand. This little frog hangs on the outside of my kitchen window, a fairly new clear window through which I can usually see my car and the people walking by on the sidewalk and maybe my neighbor doing yardwork. That window looked like this this morning, frosted in the traditional sense. I can not see out any of the windows on the east side of my apartment, the side facing the street and the wind howling out of the Columbia River Gorge. The window directly above my bed is on the north side of the house, and protected by shrubbery, and I can see out of it just fine, through the bushes to the street.

Poor doggie fell down the steps this morning, when I wasn't quite awake enough to notice that the steps weren't merely wet from rain. She got right up and did her business, and I stepped out far enough to help her back up onto the porch, poor thing. I myself haven't stepped any farther than that. I've watched cars creep down the little hill next to me, going about two miles an hour and easing to the stop sign on the corner. I've heard some kids sliding down that same hill. But I have no desire to leave the house.

I think most people are in my same frame of mind. The traffic level is one-in-the-morning, not one-in-the-afternoon. Cold rain continues to fall, and the sheet of ice on the street, the sidewalk, the lawn gets a little thicker with each passing hour. I'm supposed to attend a dinner party tonight. I haven't heard from the host if it is still on, but I am inclined to stay at home this evening, eating something from my well-stocked freezer. Walking on that ice looks scary enough; I don't want to think of driving on it.

(Lest you read this entry and the previous one and think it has been continuously cold here, let me assure you we had very nice weather in between - mid-forties and sunny.)

Hmm, that's a new one!

I was laying in bed yesterday when the heater kicked on, an hour or two before it should have. That's weird, I thought, did I change the timer? Then I remembered that I don't have the heater shut off overnight, I just have it automatically turn down to 55 degrees (F). And I came fully awake when I realized it must have dropped below 55 degrees in the apartment. Wow. I've been warm and cozy for a month now with the electric blanket on the bed, so I stayed there until the heater kicked off and I knew it would be warmer.

I've gotten into a routine at bedtime - I put my PJ's in the bed and turn the electric blanket on HIGH while I watch the news or finish up my email. I give it a good thrity minutes, sometimes a full hour, before I go to bed. By then, the heat's turned down from 65 to 55 and the house has started to chill. I take the dog out (let her out, usually, as she's pretty good about doing her business and coming straight back inside) and then change into warm PJ's and jump into bed. I turn the blanket to LOW as soon as I get in, and it stays there until morning.

This morning was garbage day, which meant yesterday was dog-poop-pick-up-day. This is one of the dreadful things about having a dog (the other is the hair. Dog hair everywhere! I love my dog, but I'm looking forward to the day when I don't have to pick black fluff off of everything.). I hadn't been home in over a week. My neighbor had a big black lab, and they'd been looking after my pup while I was gone, so I decided to just pick up the whole yard. It had rained a couple of days before, and I knew the vast majority of "stuff" would be mushy and cold. Yuck. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I did it. Pulled a couple of plastic newspaper bags on for gloves and grabbed a plastic grocery sack and went out to the yard.

As luck would have it, the first poop I came to was one of the rained-on ones. It had that mushy, faded appearance that I knew meant it would stick to the grass. I'd have to handle it carefully or risk squishing it in ways I didn't want to think about. As soon as I touched it, though, I could tell it wouldn't squish. It wouldn't stick to the grass, either. It was frozen. Solid. It pulled up easily and went into the bag without smearing or sticking to the sides.

This could be interesting. I moved to the next pile and found it the same. The ones deeper in the yard, not yet in the morning sun, were even more frozen, if that were possible. Even the new poops pulled up as easily as plastic novetly-store poo. I could get used to this. I moved around the yard quickly, nearly filling my back full of frozen poop before I realized my fingers were cold and numb. The tied-off plastic grocery sack landed in the trash can with a satisfying thud.

I could get used to this.