LUNCH WITH CAROL AND DONNA

It is cold as I write this on Saturday morning.  According to the TV it is 24*F (-4*C) and will go down to 14*F (-10*C) tonight. It sure feels like it in this house.  If the temperatures get below freezing, this house gets cold.  Always has.  It is a 100 year old drafty house.  What can I say?  When I get off of here, I will put the fireplace heater on to warm up the room.

Many people are already getting snow this morning.  It is supposed to start here around 8 a.m. and we are to get 1-3 inches (2.5 - 7.5 cm) of snow today.  Not bad but the bad part is the wind and blowing so it is hard to see to drive.

Yesterday morning I looked out of my kitchen window and saw the holly tree.  It looked so pretty with the snow on it.  The white snow, green leaves and red berries was just lovely.

I finally got around to changing my nail polish.  The sparkly red from Christmas was getting cracked and wasn't so sparkly any more.  How is this for the New Year?  It is from Julep and called "Bree".  All of their nail polish has a woman's name as its title.  Do you think they will someday run out of names?  In some lights my nails look silver and in other lights they look gold.  I love it.
 

You can see most of the snow was gone by the time I was ready to go out with Carol P. and Donna B. for lunch.  (Why do I know so many Carols and Donnas?)
 

We had quite an adventure getting to lunch.  Carol was going to drive.  She said she would pick me up around noon.  By 12:15 she still had not shown up so I called Donna and asked if she had heard from Carol.  She hadn't, so I called Carol at home.  There was no answer so I called her cell phone.  Because of all the construction going on around here (the three main streets to get into my neighborhood are closed!) she was lost.  I tried to talk her into the neighborhood but she got more and more lost.  So when I found she was heading up the avenue instead of down, I knew she was near a savings and loan building parking lot.  I told her to pull in there and I would come to get her.

I went out and cleaned off my car and got on my way.  I had to drive all the way to church (which is in another neighborhood), turn around, and drive all the way back to get to her.  It didn't take long, but what a pain!

We met up in the lot and I told her to follow me.  I took her down the avenue and went to turn onto the one street I thought was open to get into the neighborhood.  BUT...

The Streets Department and Gas Works was there digging up the street, replacing the pipes and refilling the street.  Where I was going to go was closed with barriers.  That's OK.  I can turn on the side street and still get to where I want to go (my house so one of us can leave our car and we can go on to lunch).  EXCEPT...

There was a HUGE flatbed truck trying to get through and he had gotten stuck.  When I spoke to the driver later, he said he had been there for an hour and they wouldn't temporarily move the barrier so that he could turn the corner.  So no one could get through and there was about a quarter mile back up.

One guy in front of me decided to back up the street and headed right for me.  Whoa!  Fortunately he went around me, but almost hit three other cars.  Another guy wanted to get out of his parking space so got in his car and drove right into the melee and then backed up down the street.

By this time we were near the Savings and Loan parking lot.  A guy walking down the street told me to just go into the lot and there was a gate on the other side which would take me out to the side street.  I thought, "what a good idea!"  Another guy pulled in there, but I couldn't see where he went.  So I did the same thing and Carol followed me.  BUT...

The other gate was chained and locked and we couldn't get out.  Neither could anyone else that followed us in.  We both parked and I went into the Savings and Loan and asked the ladies in there if they could please open the gate.  They said no, they weren't allowed to.  They said this tie up happened every day and people would just have to wait.  (We had been in the tie up for 45 minutes at this point.)  This is when I walked out and went over to talk to the truck driver.

One of the other drivers who was stuck and Carol were talking when I came out of the building.  They decided the only way was to drive on the sidewalk and then go out onto the side street.  So Carol and I went back to our cars.  By this time I was getting upset and Carol was REALLY upset.  She was not taking this well at all and I knew we had to get out of the situation.  As I pulled up to Carol's car, she asked if she could leave her car in the lot and just ride with me.  I said that was a good idea.

There were two cars and a small delivery truck in front of us as we pulled out of the lot and drove along the sidewalk.  The ladies in the Savings and Loan were yelling at us to not do that but we all just kept going.  What were we going to do?

So after going down several back streets, we hit the main road and headed for Donna's house.  We were an hour late picking her up.  Fortunately Carol had called her so she knew what was going on and wasn't worried about us.  I was sorry to see Carol so upset but I knew that once we got to the restaurant and had a good lunch that it would all blow over.

We went to my favorite place, East Coast Wings.  And we got my favorite server, Khris.  He remembered me too.  Donna got a burger and Carol and I got wings.  I got honey barbecue sauce on mine and Carol got parmesan ranch.  I got tortilla chips with salsa and Carol and Donna got fries.  Everything was good and I ate everything on my plate.  Everything!  I seldom do that because they give you so much, but I was hungry.

Khris asked if I was getting dessert for my birthday.  I said no but Carol and Donna said yes I had to.  He left the menu open to the desserts in front of me and told me I would give in.  I really didn't want dessert, but they insisted until I gave in and had a scoop of ice cream.  I had to take another Dairy Ease to eat it, but fortunately I didn't get sick.  I seldom eat ice cream because I can't digest it so this was a nice treat.
 

After we ate we took Donna home and then had to figure out how to get Carol's car.  I took a back way home and as I did I saw the street that was previously closed was now open and the offending truck was gone.  So I was able to drive around, come up the previously closed street and go into the parking lot so Carol could get her car.  She was still confused as to where she was because she does not know my neighborhood well (I don't know hers too well either), so I led her out to a place where she knew where she was and she made her way home.  The lunch was fun but oh what a time we had driving around!

I put up the little night light my sister Elaine gave me for Christmas.  It's a little Christmasy with the tree, but there are snowmen so I thought it would fit in with my winter decorations.  So cute!  I keep a night light on in the kitchen so it's not dark when you go out there at night.
 

And so I begin another day.  I am pretty sure I am going to cancel going to Lancaster for lunch today.  I do not like to drive in snow and I am afraid that if I move my car there will be no parking spaces when I come home.  So we will have to make it another time.  I will call my brother and reschedule.  I will go food shopping in about an hour though.  Not because of the snow but because the cupboards are bare!

I hope you all have a nice day.  Keep warm!

Kathy 

Sunrise:  7:22 a.m.

Sunset:  4:52 p.m.

9 hours and 30 minutes of daylight

Cloudy/snow

Temperatures:  25*/17*