Dashing Through the Snow

It’s been an evening chock full of surprises.

It started around 4:15pm when my husband called saying his truck died.  We are currently having a cold snap in our area and his diesel truck isn’t liking it one bit.  It is cold enough that his fuel gelled and the truck wouldn’t stay running.

Traffic was slow as we’d gotten over 8 inches of snow in the past 24 hours and the roads were slippery.  I finally made it to his location in Eden Prairie around 5pm.  I drove him to a Holiday gas station, The Home Depot, and Bobby and Steve’s Auto World before he found the additives he needed to (hopefully) get his truck running.  

He poured the additives in and started it up.  It ran for a couple minutes and then died.  He kept trying but it wouldn’t stay running.  He finally called Bobby and Steve’s to see if he could get a tow, but they said they didn’t have anyone available, and work orders were piled up.

He had a little more of the additives left and decided to pull out the fuel filter and dump it all straight in.  (He was doing all this in -11ºF weather and then jumping into my car to warm up.)  Huzzah!  That finally worked and the truck stayed running!  He drove around the parking lot a bit and then pulled out onto the road.  A few blocks away was the entrance to the freeway.  I was following along behind him and knew something was up when he wasn’t accelerating past 35mph on the freeway.

He pulled off at the next exit and told me it wouldn’t go any faster.  He mapped out a route to avoid freeways and we took off again, down Shady Oak Road to Highway 7, to West Lake Street, without encountering much trouble.  

West Lake was very busy.  Shortly after crossing Hennepin Avenue, we had to stop for a light at Bryant Avenue.  Unfortunately, the truck chose that moment to die and refuse to start.  The right lane was partially blocked by a parked car.  We had a line of traffic behind us, including a city bus.  My husband kept trying and trying to start his truck.  

Just then, because there wasn’t enough going on already, lights started flashing and sirens started blaring a few blocks behind us.  An ambulance.  Well, of course, there was an ambulance!  There was nothing we could do but sit in the left lane with our flashers on.  The parked car left and the bus and remaining traffic pulled off to the side.  The ambulance had to go around us to the left into the oncoming traffic lane.  

The truck finally started and we zipped around the corner and parked, where the truck promptly died again.  After more struggles, he got it to fire up and we headed toward West 31st street.  The truck died at the light before we could turn on 31st.  Again we had a string of cars behind us.  The guy behind me got out and yelled if we were waiting for something specific.  I informed him that the truck wouldn’t start.  So that string of cars navigated around us on the left side (oncoming traffic lane) and went through the red light to get out of the way.  

Finally, my husband decided enough was enough.  He had me pull my car up in front of his truck and hooked up a tow strap between our vehicles.  Away we went, my 6-cylinder SUV pulling his 1-ton F350 Super Duty.  Since it was slippery and my car really wasn’t made to pull that kind of weight, it took a bit to get going at intersections.  One nimrod decided I was just going too slowly through the intersection and turned right in front of me when I was halfway through.  Thankfully, I didn’t hit him.

Slowly but surely we made it all the way home.  He had managed to keep it idling about halfway there, so I pulled over on our block, he unhitched the vehicles, and we were both able to pull into the driveway unassisted.  Almost 4 hours exactly, getting home around 8:10pm.

I had no desire to make supper when we got home, so I ordered Door Dash.  Then I remembered the 8+ inches of snow out front, so I slapped my coat and mittens back on to go outside and do a quick shovel of the deck/front walk.

I was almost done when I heard, then saw, one of our neighbors walking around the block.  “Oh good!”, she said, “I’m glad to see you shoveling.  It’s hard walking in the snow.”

“Well”, I said, “I’m not doing it all tonight.”  (Thinking to myself – In the dark, when it’s 11º below zero, the wind has started blowing, the snow only stopped falling earlier today, and we just had a 4-hour ordeal getting the truck home.)

She walked past and then had to drive her point home again, “Everyone else has already shoveled”, spreading her arms to encompass the whole block.  I’m honestly surprised she couldn’t hear my rolling eyeballs as they scraped the back of my skull.  It was pretty loud.

Shortly after that, my supper arrived and I laughed out loud.  The delivery person delivered my meal ON HIS BICYCLE!  I would have given him a second tip if I had had extra cash on me!  He was bundled up in winter gear and navigated the snow-covered roads like a pro.  I watched his little flashing red taillight as he rode away.

I love Minnesota!

 

Don't cry over spilled oatmeal

For those of you who have ever had a difficult in-law live with you, this one is for you.

The best way to describe the state of my mother-in-law's mind at the time of this incident would have to be delusional.  For the whole time we lived under the same roof, she always seemed to be in her own little world where nothing else mattered but her wants and desires.  I think she would have been happiest if we had relinquished the reigns of the household into her "capable" hands.

This story took place in our kitchen, late at night, on one of the hottest, muggiest nights of the year.  Our air-conditioning had never been the greatest.  When the sun would beat down all day and the temps were in the 90's, we were lucky if it was 10 degrees cooler in the house.  Trying to sleep in that weather was always difficult for me.

My mother-in-law loved to cook large batches of food that she would nibble throughout the week.  Unfortunately, she loved doing this at night, usually around midnight or later.  The problem was, I had to get up in the morning and go to work.  Struggling to fall asleep in the heat and then having to endure the smell of her food as she was cooking, did not make me very happy.

No matter how many times I told her to cook during the day, (since she didn't have a job and was home all day) it always ended up being close to midnight before she'd pull out the Le Creuset cast iron pot.

Her favorite thing to make was oatmeal, a whole vat of it at a time.  

On this night, I saw the telltale signs around 11 p.m. or so.  Pot on the stove. Oatmeal container next to it.  I started to get worried.  With the heat I didn't know how I would get enough sleep to face the next day at work.  I politely asked if she could wait until the morning, since it was supposed to cool off the next day.  I thought I got through to her.  It would have been a first, but I was hopeful.  I went back to my room.  

About 5 minutes later, the smell of oatmeal danced down the hall and into my nostrils.  It probably wouldn't have been so bad, but I knew what was coming next.  She always put creamy JIF peanut butter in her oatmeal.  Not only would I have to endure the extra heat and humidity that boiling food on the stove would cause, but now I would have to try to ignore what smelled like peanut butter cookies wafting through my room.  Peanut butter cookies….I love peanut butter cookies!  Aughhhhhhh!

I tried to stay calm.  I tried to be understanding.  But why, when she always did what she pleased and didn't care about anyone but herself.  Anger started rising.  Must…stay…calm.  I knew if I went out there it was going to be ugly.  Patience…..understanding…………PEANUT BUTTER!  A scream ripped through the inside of my head, "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!!!!"

Down the hall I went.  I was about to do something I had never done before in my entire life, I was going to completely lose it.

Mother-in-law was at the stove, merrily stirring her bubbling vat of faux-cookie-smelling-oatmeal.  I gritted my teeth.  I went over and opened the kitchen door that leads out to a nice screen porch and flipped on the lights.  Circling back, I grabbed a couple of pot holders, went over to the stove, and whisked away the vat while she was still stirring.  Then I barreled out to the screen porch, fumbled with the screen door with my hands full, stomped down the wooden steps to a cement patio, and hurled the cast iron pot, and the sloppy glop within, toward a sloping flower bed a few feet away.

By this time, mother-in-law had wandered out to the screen porch, dazed and confused and angry.  

"Well!  Bring it back in here so I can wash it because I'm not going out there to get it!" she said in her annoying clipped, snotty voice.

Is it possible to go beyond completely losing it?  Why yes, yes it is.  And I went.  Completely.  Beyond.

While she was speaking, I had started back up the steps, but at her words, I stomped back down them again.  I rushed toward the flower bed, not seeing a landscaping rock hidden in the shadows, and fell to my knees.  I was up on my feet again like a springing cat.  I felt no pain.  I dashed over to the pot, no potholders this time, and yanked it up by the handles. I think the heat of my rage was hotter than the pot, because it didn't burn me.

Like a discus thrower at the Olympics, I hurled that pot with all my might into the back yard.

"Well!  It can just stay out there because I'm not going out there to get it!" she quipped in the same snotty voice.

"GOOD!" I yelled back, "IT CAN STAY OUT THERE 'TILL HELL FREEZES OVER!!!!!"

I stomped back up the steps to the screen porch as she wandered back into the house.

"Well!  Now I don't have enough oatmeal to make another batch!" she fumed.

"GOOD!" I yelled at her again, stomping down the hall and slamming my door as hard as I could.

I still didn't sleep well that night, but I sure got a lot out of my system!  That pot sat forlornly in the green grass for a couple of days before we called a truce.  

While writing this, I got curious and measured the distance I hurled that silly pot.  Approximately 35 feet.  Not bad!  

Green Eggs and Ham?

The Problem...

There was one episode that pre-dated our limecapade, but it definitely deserves mention.  It was the night before my boyfriend shipped out for his two weeks active duty in the Navy.  It was late, and we were tired, so we went to the local 24 hour restaurant for supper.  We were both actually in a breakfast mood, so my boyfriend decided he was going to order his favorite, Eggs Benedict.  "Hi, my name is Jim," said our server as he approached our table.  And with that one simple sentence, our adventure began.

The Search...

Jim was a very young guy and kinda shy.  He took our order and my boyfriend ordered Eggs Benedict.  Jim turned to leave, then turned back and asked him how he wanted his eggs.  We were both perplexed at this question.  Eggs Benedict only comes one way!  My boyfriend told him that he wanted them the usual way and to just give the order to the cook.  The cook would know how to fix it.

We both thought that was an odd question, but Jim trotted off to the kitchen and we made chit chat while waiting for our meals.  And we waited.  And we waited...  And we waited.......  Now we were getting annoyed.  I think we were the only, or almost the only, patrons in the restaurant at the time.  How long did it take to make two breakfasts?  Finally Jim comes back out and stammers that the cook isn't sure how to make the Eggs Benedict.  So my boyfriend started to explain things to him, but he asked my boyfriend to hold on.  Jim went over to the next table, grabbed a chair, came back to our table, and pulled up his chair to sit with us.  "OK," he said, waiting for my boyfriend's explanation.  That was the defining moment.  We had suddenly crossed over into the TwiLime Zone!  My boyfriend patiently explained the nuances of Eggs Benedict to him and Jim finally felt confident that he knew what it was.  Back to the kitchen he went.

The Solution...

Success!  He finally brought us our meals and the eggs were prepared correctly.  After we had finished our meal, the manager came out and apologized profusely for all the problems.  She explained that they were short-staffed, and that in actuality Jim was a busboy, not a waiter!  Well, that explained a lot, but it begged the question, who was the cook?  The janitor?

Conclusion...

If you go to a restaurant late at night and your server is named Jim, don't order eggs.

How it All Began

The Problem...

It all began many years ago, on a very exhausting evening in Ohio.  My boyfriend and I were in an unfamiliar town, trying to deal with a particularly stressful family emergency.  When it was time to try and relax and settle into the hotel for the evening, my boyfriend decided he would like to kick back with some Corona.

The Search...

We headed to the liquor store and picked up some nice, cold Corona.  What goes best with Corona?  A lime!!!  The liquor store didn't have them, so we figured we'd hit the local grocery store on the way back to the hotel.  Unfortunately, the first problem in this town was that all the grocery stores seemed to close up tight at a ridiculously early hour.  We went to one, then another, but they were closed.  Then we made the rounds of the local convenience stores.  Not a lime to be found.  At this point, we had spent way too much time on this.  We were so tired and emotionally drained from events earlier in the day, that instead of getting angry over this, we both thought it was extremely funny.  Each fruitless stop on our escapade (pun intended) just seemed more and more ridiculous.  I think it provided just the comic relief that we needed that night.


The Solution...
Eventually we stopped at a gas station.  They didn't have fresh limes, but they did have lime juice in those little, lime-shaped bottles.  This was as good as we were going to get, so off to the hotel with the prized liquid.  I asked my boyfriend how it tasted with the lime juice.  His reply was "Eh, not as good as a fresh one."


Conclusion...
So now, when we have a difficult day trying to find something or somewhere, we may say "I went searching for a lime today."  Or, "I was looking for such and such today, and they were all looking a bit green."  A small inside joke that helps diffuse the frustration of the situation.  A small inside joke...that I have now shared with the world.