the real story

Got some free time on your shovel-calloused hands? Forget the Gargoyled pine needles and Splintering Firewood Dragons.

Here's the real story- feel free to click to the next blog if I don't capture your attention with my slightly self-indulgent though possibly occasionally entertaining story of the past few days. It won't hurt my feelings.

Friday- no school because of the threat of snow. We had 10" by 6:00 pm and another 10" landed that night.

Mr. Sophanne and I did the grocery store run on Thursday night- so very far ahead of the game.

We bought a roast to put in the crock pot.

I put it in the crock pot at 10:30 a.m. I added vegetables at 3:30 pm (slightly later than I had anticipated but I was distracted by a nap) Once I added the vegetables, crock pot was set on "high."

Mr. Sophanne came home at about that time and indicated that he wasn't "all that hungry so I'll turn the crockpot back to low and let the vegetables cook that way."

At 5:30 pm we discovered that he had mistaken "off" for "low" and he had crunchy vegetables. I had leftover pierogies.

At 8:30 that evening the electricity went out. In spite of our best snowstorm shopping efforts, we really did not plan for a power outage. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition or apparently a power outage.

We go to sleep with the vain hope that the power would return as we slept.

On Saturday morning with no power in sight, Mr. Sophanne bravely faces "the fireplace that we never use because we're not sure when the flue is open or closed and it's always smokey no matter what and it hasn't been cleaned in ages." (Is creosote the word I'm looking for?)

He was able to determine that the flue was open and started a little fire (all in the fireplace). What he did not anticipate so much was the weight of the snow slamming the flue shut. We experienced a great deal of smoke. So much in fact that I am just now breathing relatively normally. (Part of these breathing difficulties may have been as a result of all of the scented candles we were forced to use the previous night.)

In order to rid the house of the smoke (which rose from the finished basement into the rest of the house) we had to open all of the doors and windows. Brick houses (which ours is) retain heat relatively well unless the doors and windows are all open to prevent asphyxiation. I would be suspicious of any yarn I might give away at an incredible price with a "slightly smokey smell." Mr. Sophanne closed the glass windows of the fireplace, went into the mudroom to breathe and say a prayer and voila we had fire. He's a mighty powerful pray-er.

Somewhere in all of this we realized that we had no water (it's an electric pump that runs the well) but there was in fact plenty of snow. We remembered the French press coffee maker that I had from a previous life and the all metal soup pot he had from a previous life. It doesn't take nearly as long as one would think to turn snow into boiling water in the fireplace. Fresh Coffee. (hey- we can DO this.)

Later that night the roast found it's way into the pot and into the fireplace. Yum. Dinner by the fire. We played a few hands of gin rummy, watched two episodes of "Flight of the Conchords" on my laptop (until the battery went) and went to bed. Truth be told, I was feeling kind of "Zen snowy monastery oh the peacefulness"-ish.

This is where the trouble begins. Mr. Sophanne did not camp much as a child. He did not have the experience of a "heat free" South African winter. It troubled him to be warm under the covers and still be able to see his breath in the cold. Also troubling him was my mother's question "Aren't you claustrophobic? You can't get anywhere." He spent the evening by the fire. I spent it upstairs under eleventy-seven blankets with 'lil Liza (who was still quite suspicious of the former smoke spewing cave in our house) I think his "breaking point" was when he realized that the pot that we boiled the coffee water in was now full of pot roast stuff.

On Sunday he found a hotel and in Herculian fashion (and with a little help from the neighbor* who knew a guy with a plow) dug his vehicle out of the snow. I would not leave the dog overnight. He would not stay in the house overnight. I enjoyed some comforts of civilization at the hotel and he took me home.

If you're still reading then you'll know that as my toes turned to icicles under the covers, Liza hopped into bed and instead of going to her usual "crook of the knee" position, went straight for the feet and we managed quite nicely through the evening.

This morning at the railroad (Mr. Sophanne's place of employment) they had 5 guys and only needed 4. The "Decider" remembered a sandwich that my fine husband had once shared at lunch and he was home free with breakfast burritos and coffee.

Not yet having crawled out of the blankets (given the one degree it was outside and all) I said, "Hey- while you're up, will you call favorite Aunt and say hey like I usually do in the morning?"

When he got off the phone- genius struck- Aunt likes my dog. Aunt likes me. Aunt has heat. Aunt has food. Aunt has toilets that flush. An hour later we were on the road to Aunt's house. Necessary prescriptions filled-a phone call to my boss saying "call me here if you need me."

Now dog and I are safe warm and happy at Aunt's house. My wallet and the refilled prescription are sitting in the back of Mr. Sophanne's vehicle 80 miles away and there's more snow a-coming.

All in all it's turned out well. We're clothed, we're warm and we're fed. We're not together but we know the other is safe. The dog is safe and I'm just saying that if in the next few days there are a couple of skitchy blog posts, you'll be able to figure out which medicine got left behind!

*seriously- a blog post with footnotes- but get a load of this neighbor- we had branches hanging heavy with snow in our access road. Rather than going out and shaking the snow off of them this guy went out with a 5 ft step ladder and a chain saw in 20" of snow and cut down the branches. I laughed my A$$ off when the branches created little mini avalanches of snow on his head. I also had the phone handy to call 911 and did not permit Mr. Sophanne to offer any assistance in that endeavor. This neighbor later brought candles and water to us and got the access road plowed so I will refrain from any further rantings of stupidity.


And if you made it all the way through this adventure, there may be some slightly smokey yarn in your future!