The term “burnt sugar” may bring any number of sensual images to my mind.  Maybe a taste of burnt sugar cake or burnt sugar frosting or the smell of sugar being reduced to a thick molassesy syrup.  Maybe a kitchen accident.  Maybe the sound of a jazz/funk/rock improvisational band by that name. 

Reading today’s news in Cleveland, the term “burnt sugar” has taken on a very literal meaning.  The Domino sugar warehouse burned last night (or rather in the early morning during third shift).  SWEEET!  Apparantly, fire broke out in the molasses room that has large gas heaters on the ceiling.  Luckily, the fire did not spread next door to the Pierre’s ice cream factory.  I guess that would have been a very unfortunate domino effect.  (sorry—couldn’t resist)

In any case, Cleveland’s near east side must smell candy-coated right now – a welcome scent to a community that has such a bad rep as the country’s poorest city. 

If one were to order a day with perfect weather, that day would be like today.  The temperature is in the 70’s, the sun is out with absolutely NO clouds.  The air is filled with the sounds of birds chirping and happy squirrels nibbling on acorns and getting ready for colder weather which threatens to move in just days or weeks from now. 

There is a very gentle breeze, which beckons me outdoors, but alas, there is a house that needs cleaning. I did spend a few hours outside this morning under the guise of retrieving the garbage cans and the recycling bin from the tree lawn.  Before going outside, I packed a few peanuts and almonds in my pockets to feed my squirrels who were invariably waiting for me to feed them, as though they would starve to death if I were not there to fill their tummies with food more exotic than freshly fallen acorns that litter the yards and driveways in our neighborhood.

I’m gonna go now and quickly clean the house so I can once again go outside and enjoy this perfect day. 

 Just got back from dropping #1 GS off at school after his weekly night at grandma’s house.   I have forgotten what a seventh grader is like—and 7^th graders today are so much more worldly than I was, and the world has changed dramatically.  Gotta watch every site he visits on the internet, listen to the music he listens to.  

Anyway, I love having him spend the night.  I still read to him until he falls asleep, though the books I read are now young adult lit.  Right now, he is reading “Monster” by Walter Dean Myers.   Good book, great author!    Having him spend the night keeps me current on teenagers today, gives me a refresher course on YA lit, AND it forces me out of bed early.  If I don’t have something that gets me up early, I roll out at 10 something.   This way, I can get things done that need to be done.

I stopped at the pet store on the way home to get food for my cats, mice, and fish.  Of those three species, the only ones that seemed eager and even grateful to me were the cats.  I even bought special treats for the mice, and only two of the three even bothered to come out of their ‘den’ to check things out.  The other two seem to be not getting along right now.  Maybe they need me to rearrange their house so they have something else to pay attention to besides each other.  The fish are kind of deep in the pond and slowing down due to the weather, so they were not exactly rushing to nibble on the pond sticks like they were two weeks ago.

Besides cleaning the house and my car today, I don’t have a lot to do.  Writing my blogs seems to be not as exciting anymore—maybe because my life isn’t as dramatic as it was a few years ago.  A blog about my pets seems a bit ho-hum, but it what it is.

Gotta go clean my car.  I’ll try to write tomorrow. 

Everyone who has lived longer than 40 years old knows that over time, a person’s center of gravity changes—not to mention his—or in this case-- her energy level diminishes a bit.  For some reason, I just have to keep proving that to myself—refusing to believe that my abilities have been altered too much. 

 

Maybe this is a case of nostalgic longing, but I had been remembering back to the old days when my mom would drop us off at the Champion Roller Rink on Saturday mornings, then pick us up in the afternoon.  We would spend hours gliding around in circles effortlessly—so long our feet would feel strange when finally placed back into our shoes.

 

When Dan asked my what I wanted for our 18^th anniversary, I said “roller skates”—not roller blades.  Then, once I got my wits about me, I said,  “Maybe I should go to a roller rink and see if I can even stand up on skates.”  It had been, after all, nearly 35 years since I had seriously skated.

 

The roller rink is open on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings from 10-noon, and mostly older – and I mean people over 60 – skate at that time.  So, off Dan and I went.  We rented the skates and it’s a good thing we did that before rushing out to buy any.  Dan was steadier than I, but then, he’s 8 years younger.  I was shaky like a toddler on skates, every muscle in my body fighting just to stay balanced.  I am surprised I only fell twice in that 50 minute trial “run” around the rink 5 times.  I’m going to be sore tomorrow, I know.  Right now, I am just exhausted.

 

Now the question is – do I return from more skating and adult lessons or do I hang it up?  Maybe it’s time to admit that wanting skates was just a way of saying that I want my youth back.  Maybe I should just move on and continue with things I know I can still do—like walk and bicycle for exercise.  The price of admission and skate rental is a small price to pay for that huge lesson. 

I just had a glorious bike ride of 8 miles.  With gasoline prices the way they are, anywhere I can ride my bicycle, I ride.  It hasn't rained here in a very long time, so the riding is perfect.   I made use of the MapMyRun space to calculate the mileage.  I would like to embed the site on this page, but not quite sure how to do that.  Help?

 

The 16 babies are doing well.  What I wanna do is keep all the females and get rid of the males.  The females will live in peace and harmony, but the males, if kept together, will fightIt wil still be a few days before they become obviously male or female and a few weeks before they are weaned.  At that time, I am gonna make a trip to the pet store with all the male mice except for Harry, who has his own cage.

Romeo is gonna break my heart!  In a desperate mission of mercy I took the poor little white mouse way out into the woods in back of our house to set it free to enter into as many inter-species at it could ever desire with the little dark-gray field mice, since it can never have the fair Princess Hermione to whom he was briefly introduced last week before King Harry (the male partner of Hermione) let him know in no uncertain terms, that Hermione was HIS woman and therefore off limits.

            I removed little Romeo from his aquarium solitary confinement and took him through the castle walls and into the woods, lowered him to the ground so he could scamper out of my hand into the leaves covering the ground.  He remained on my hand for longer than I expected, then cautiously set his tender little paws on the ground and took shelter under the leaves.  I quickly turned away and came back into the house and told Dan that the move just about broke my heart.

            Five minutes later, Dan came in and asked if I thought I could find the spot again, as he is teaching Biology this year and thinks Romeo would be an excellent addition to his classroom.  We both trekked back out to the woods and had no problem seeing a bright white mouse’s nose poking out from the leaves.  I reached down and picked up Romeo, who seemed very grateful for the rescue.  I put him under my shirt and he remained there comfy and cozy during the trip back into the house.  He now is comfortable back in his terrarium sanctuary.

 

By the way, Princess Hermione is VERY pregnant, so I cleaned the cage so she can have her little ones in a clean environment.

Here’s an update on the mouse/pinkie/snake situation:  I still have my two mice originally obtained for breeding purposes, but they still have not produced any young. And, as I said in a previous blog, the snake doesn’t care for pinkies anymore since it has had a taste of field mice.  Of course I sort of have adopted the mice and given them to Gavin to name (Harry and Hermione) and keep as pets. 

In the meantime, the snake still needed to be fed, so I bought a small mouse and dumped it into the snake cage, and then hung around watching to see if the snake would come out of the fake foliage for the kill.  I waited and waited, then thought maybe he didn’t realize dinner was there, so I took out one piece of plastic greenery at a time.  Then I took out the small camouflage-duct-tape-covered PVC pipe.  It was then I realized the snake was gone!  The damned thing had run—er—slithered away from home.  We tore the upstairs apart looking for him, but we will never find him, since he’s so small and can hide anywhere. 

So what to do with the spare mouse?  I kept him in a spare cage for a day or two, then when I had to clean the cage, I dumped the creature in with the other two and kept a close eye on them as a cleaned the main cage.  After ten minutes of butt sniffing and otherwise checking on each other, the big male mouse started picking on the young’n and I knew that what they say is true: you cannot put two males in the same cage.

With heavy heart, I decided to free the little guy to the outside world.  I scooped him up in a container, took him out by the bed by the pond in the back and freed him into the mass of shrubbery and plants.  He immediately dove down a chipmunk hole and I came back inside, wondering if white mice breed with field mice, and thinking they would make for very identifiable babies.

Back on the inside, the she mouse was hunting frantically for her boytoy, climbing the walls and creeping across the ceiling of the cage.  Eventually, she settled into the house inside the cage possibly reconciling herself to life with one man.  I could identify.

In the meantime, the young Romeo had freed himself from the captivity of life in the wild and found his way to the garage, where Dan was working.  Dan ignored him for awhile, but the mouse kept finding his way back near Dan.  Dan picked him up and brought him inside, where he has been relegated to a life of abstinence alone in the old snake cage.

So it goes in the twisted life of animals in captivity.  As in the wild, the alpha male claims the woman.

 

Today, June 20,2007, Dan cleaned up his computer are, rerouting the wires -- AND DID NOT USE A SINGLE ZIP TIE!!!  You have to understand that Dan is nearly fanatical about zip-tying wires together to the point that anything hooked up to the wires are virtually unmoveable!  He said I should write this date down because it will never happen again.  How many times I have wanted to move my monitor over and inch or get to the back of my computer, but zip ties have it locked in place.  No wonder the cops use them.

Who would have thought there would ever be a festival to celebrate duct tape?  The Manco company and the city of Avon, Ohio, of course!  The celebration was this past weekend, and it afforded the perfect opportunity for a Friday night out with our grandson. When we pulled into Veteran’s Memorial Park, we found a parking place that, had it been rainy, would have been a mudhole, but the weather was great and we pulled in, my Beetle being dwarfed by the surrounding pickups, minivans, and SUV’s.  

 

We scaled a hill and could see the normal carnival attractions: rides like the Tilt A Whirl (my first vomiting experience at the Trumbull County Fair around 1965), the Paratrooper, a merry-go-round, and various other rides that I have been unable to ride (since the 1965 experience).   Grandson went on a few by himself while we waved to him as he passed by.

 

At basically 2-3 dollars per ride, the number of rides was the limit set by us.  Wow!  The carnivals have gotten expensive!  We got one elephant ear and shared it.  It was delicious and I was thinking it was something I could make at home for a lot cheaper.  

 

Free stuff:

 

*We went to a tent called “Duck Tape Saves the Day” and got out pictures in various scenes.  

*We went to the duck tape fashion gallery, where various outfits, all designed by fashion students, were displayed all made out of Duck Tape.  Quite impressive, I think, but there is no way they could be comfortable.  Okay, I admit it—I tried to cover a miniskirt in camo duck tape and it does not stretch at all, so movement is limited.

*We each got a free roll of duck tape  and we all chose the green camo

*We went to the after-dark laser/fireworks show.  I expected a more spectacular display than we got.  Avon is a country town and the music was mostly country.  Everyone around us was familiar with  the music and was singing along.  One woman directly behind us was a half key off.  The show was dedicated to Jason West (the recently fallen police officer and my former student) and to the men and women in uniform.

 

After the show, we went home and collapsed into sleep.  It was a good time.  The video above shows a bit more about it, ass does the link in this text.  I know that the Manco Corporation has done a lot to help the local schools, including the move from the old high school to the brand new one, where they hold their company talent show every year ion the auditorium.

 

Everytime you pick up a roll of Duck brand duct tape, look inside the ring and see the logo and the name of Avon, Ohio.  It’s a good product and it’s a good company.  Check out www.ducktape.com.

 

 

I love this city!  Cleveland has so much--- strength?  The people here are fiercely proud of their city and everything associated with it—except maybe the poverty thing.  Our sports teams are not usually the greatest, but the fans never say die and neither do we give up on our city.  We are traditionally working people from many different cultures who have slaved in steel mills.  Since that has been taken away, it’s been a tough road, but Cleveland has yet to surrender.   When Ian Hunter wrote and recorded “Cleveland Rocks” in 1979, I had already named my son after him (and Ian Gillan—of Deep Purple) and took great pride in all things Cleveland.  The song brings tears to my eyes, so when Drew Cary adopted it as the theme song for his show, the pride of this city came swelling back to many of us.  We truly rock!

 

The Indians are not too bad this year and what can I even say about the Cavs?  I didn’t watch the Indian’s game today.  I was instead mowing the lawn—my favorite chore (NO I’M NOT KIDDING!), but I see they lost to the Reds 1-0 – the only run being scored in the 12^th inning!  The Cavs play in a few hours and I do plan on watching that – for sure.  Ask LeBron about Cleveland pride.  We just need to beat these Spurs, which is a tough one when the game is not in Cleveland, but it can be done, I’m sure.  Every eye will be glued to the set at 9.

 

Go Cavs!  Go Cleveland!

 

 

 

 

The weather here in Cleveland is absolutely perfect!  It’s 76 degrees and sunny.  I (shhhhh) have been hanging out laundry on a clandestine clothesline stretched across my back deck.  That’s against code in my fair city, but it smells so good and does save money. 

 

We’re going to Streetsboro in a short while to meet my sister-in-law and her family for dinner.  That’s the halfway point.  We’re meeting at the Dairy Queen parking lot to decide where to eat.  Streetsboro is so rapidly growing that it is impossible to know exactly what places are available.  Unfortunately, all the choices are probably franchises.

 

I did 75 minutes today on the treadmill, but yesterday did 6.54 mile (mapmyrun.com) on my bicycle, and the day before that walked 3.57 miles in Lakewood, which, while nostalgic, was not real enjoyable since #1 I did not have my tunes, #2 the sidewalks are old slate sidewalks and are not easy on the legs, and #3 the sidewalks are uneven so no the best for people like me who have balance issues.  So today I was back to the treadmill.

 

Gotta go get ready to leave.  Leave a comment if you wanna.

 

 

Today is a day that I have not exercised nor eaten, but am researching family history to try and make sense of dreams I have.  My dreams are very vivid, and often my dreams are so realistic that I cannot tell the difference between what actually happened and what happened in a dream.  I may dream that my husband stopped at the store and bought certain groceries, then I have to ask him whether he really did or not.  Anyway, on to the recurring dream I have . . .

I was told (or was I?) some years ago that my original family home in Keene Township here in Ohio was a stop on the underground railroad (unlikely since the house was probably built around 1890) and I have often dreamt of a secret room in that old house, and last night (this morning) the room appeared in a dream again. The house is, in my dream, much bigger than it really is (and it still stands, barely), and is scarcely visible, so overgrown it is with foliage.) In actuality, it is a normal-sized house which sat on 40 acres of farmland, and housed my branch of the family—my great-grandparents and their 9 children: Walter, Bessie, Truman, John, Mary, J. Blaine, Lester, Richard, and Elmer.  (Lester was my grandpa)

IN MY DREAM, The secret room is part of an old house with a covert door off one of the bedrooms.  If I open the door and climb up a few steep steps through the cobwebs there is a room with two double beds at one end five single beds, a junior bed with side rails and a crib along another wall.  Every time I have my dream, the room is the same, but something more is uncovered.  Last night, there were dressers added and I discovered postcards sent from various places to the matriarch of one of the secret families who took shelter in that dream room.

IN TRUTH, parts of my ancestral family were active in and even jailed for being Abolitionists, but not my particular string as far as I can tell, but it is a great dream.

I’m being a bad girl today!  I am tired and have decided to NOT exercise.  I’m entitled to a day of rest, right?  Despite the fact that I always say that we, as human beings, are not ENTITLED to anything,  I am taking the day off.  My treadmill needs a rest too after all the pounding I put it through everyday.  I wonder if there is some kind of maintenance it needs?  I want to treat it right since it certainly treats me right.

I had to put my dog, Dharma Bum, down last week.  That’s not even the one we were concerned about—that’s Webster!  Dharma’s legs collapsed as he came back in through the dog door.  That had happened before, but when I straightened him out to help him stand up, they merely collapsed again.  He dragged himself across the floor with his front legs.  He was 14 years old and the time had come.  I took him to the vet and stayed with him as they injected him with the syringe of yellow fluid that would help him to pass quickly and painlessly.  I know it may sound selfish, but I wanted my voice to be the last sounds he heard, and my face to be the last one he saw.  “Mommy’s here, Bum.  It’s okay.  Mommy’s here.”  And then his heart stopped beating.

The Indian’s home-opener was truly a crazy situation.  If you go to newsnet5.com you can see a slide show of the huge flakes of snow that fell off and on throughout the “game.”  It seemed insane that they didn’t call the game sooner than they did.  People sat in the stands bundled up like they were attending the Iditarod or a Browns game.  The umps kept looking at the sky and talking to Eric Wedge and Mike Hargrove about whether or not they could get this game finished.  It was quite obvious to the people like me who were watching what transpired on TV.  The players were having trouble seeing the ball. One pitch shy of the time they could ‘legally’ call it a game, they called it – then they called off the game the next day and the double-header that would have taken place today.  There is a foot of snow on the ground here—and we aren’t even in the Snow Belt!

Happy Easter to those who celebrate this holiday.  I’m going to curl up on the couch in a warm blanket.

I am hooked on watching this pair of nesting eagles on a real-time cam!  I got the link from a friend who sent it to me in an amail, and it's hard to walk away from watching it continuously.  Of course, it is only visible until the sun goes down, so I have only as few more hours to watch them today.  I have learned so much about eagles in the few days that I have been watching them grow because of course I had to research eagles and their nesting habits and other things.  There are 3 eaglets in this nest and always one of the parents. The link is www.wvec.com, whiuch is a news station, but if you scroll down to almost the bottom of the page, you will see a link to the eagle cam.  Check it out and see if you don't find them as fascinating and precious as I do.

 

Speaking of precious, Dan bought my grandson a California kingsnake-- very young one -- yesterday.  Dakota named it Stripes.  It's only about 8 inches long and very narrow right now, but it's only 4 months old.  It will get up to about 30-70 inches long.  Right now it's very cute, and the breed is docile, which is good.  We've had a snake that was NOT docile, but just plain mean!

 

Diet is going well.  Made Dan shaved beef tonight, but I had none.  I have lost 13 pounds and continue to pound the treadmill everyday.  It's easy for me right now, but there is no getting around the 'diet and exercise' formula for losing weight.

Yesterday was so beautiful here in Cleveland yesterday.  Temps were in the 70’s and the sun was shining.  I spent a lot of time outdoors chatting with neighbors.  I even let the neighborhood girls decorate my car with wet chalk (hand prints of multiple colors and peace signs on the headlights and tail lights).  They wanted me to preserve it forever by parking my Beetle in the garage and never taking it out in the rain, but I told them that wasn’t happening.  They wrote “THE DEAD RULES!” on the back.  Harmony’s mom took a picture of it with her camera phone.  And last night, it poured rain and, alas, the artistry of two little girls is gone.  I think I’ll ask Harmony’s mom if she can somehow get me that picture.

Webster and Dharma Bum spent a lot of time outside ‘socializing’ with neighborhood people and other dogs.  They are definitely the senior citizens in that crowd. I think I mentioned before how many dogs there are on this street,  and so many are under a year old.  W. and D.B.  don’t really play anymore, they just sniff around and watch the youngsters frolic.

Made a delicious dish last night for dinner – and low in cholesterol!  Stuffed Cabbage Casserole.  Used ground turkey instead of ground beef, rice, saurkraut, cabbage, and pasta sauce.  I told Dan I thought it was delicious and he said it was also.  I gave a serving to Harmony’s mom, and she loved it, too.    It’s basically layered after browning the meat and rice together topping with the pasta sauce.  Bake it for 90 minutes at 325.

            Life is good here.  Spending time tomorrow with my son helping him update his MySpace layout.  Time with him is always time treasured.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I feel like my world is crumbling down around me.  I am worried about my health.  There is something wrong with the wood pellet burner.  The weather sucks.  I shouldn’t even be writing this.  My mother would never approve of me putting it all “out there!”  

 

I did the fasting lipid screening to be more accurate than my free cholesterol screening at WalMart.  Since that was 290, I hoped that maybe it would make an appreciable difference – like come down more than 100 points.  The results are back—it’s actually 287.  I thought I was scared before, but now I am petrified!  Add to that the fact that my chest has felt like I have pneumonia for the past few weeks (way before the initial screening).  I keep thinking: lung cancer? emphysema? The heart association says that heaviness in the chest is a sign of heart attack, but since I have been walking on the treadmill everyday for nearly an hour since the initial screening, it is doubtful that I could do that when I have had a heart attack, especially since I get my heart rate up (maybe too far up) every time I walk.  I do have a follow up appointment with my doctor on Friday.  I will tell her about the chest heaviness.

 

The temperature around here is in the low 30’s and it snowed this morning.  I am so ready for spring, but since it is NEVER warm on my birthday, which is next week, I cannot think it’s going to get warmer now.  I love warm weather, and abhor the snow.

 

Not only is it cold, I noticed the temperature dropping in our house.  I checked the thermostat, which is set at 68, and saw that it is 60 degrees.  The wood-pellet stove is not kicking on, though the level of pellets is high.  Something looks funny in it, and since I know only the most rudimentary maintenance about the stove, it sits there cold until Dan gets home from school.  We have blankets and warm clothes.

 

That’s why I feel my life is crumbling down around me.  I’m trying to stay positive, but I’m not succeeding for the most part.  I would feel better if my doctor was actually available to talk to, but she’s not.  I would feel better if Dan was home, but he’s not.  Maybe tomorrow things will look better.

Naturally, the weekend I got my cholesterol checked was a long one-- President's Day was Monday and the doc's office was closed.  I mean, she has three young kids who are off school, so she would naturally take days off when they are home.  Anyway, she called on Sunday and told me to fast after 7 PM on Monday and go to the diagnostic lab in her building and she would leave a script there for me to get the fasting lipid check.  She is such a sweetheart!

 

So fast is what I did, and it was not easy since my husband, wanting to do good things for me, stopped at the local store and bought me a chef's salad for dinner.  but also bought my grandson a small crown cake, which I lusted after for a few hours before asking Dan to please take it away and hide it, which he did. 

 

I took my grandson to school on Tuesday morning and hightailed it to the doc's building and signed in.  The phlebotomist said she has no script from my doctor.  Odd, I thought, since my doctor is not usually irresponsible-- quite the opposite-- there is a reason we have been with her for so many years, since she was still in her residency. I explained the situation and the phlebotomist called upstairs to my doc's office and afer a short conversation, she said she would draw the blood without a script and it was done.

 

I had to go up to the doc's office anyway to request a refill on a prescription, so I took the elevator to the second floor.  My doc's assistant was there and told me that the doc had suffered a complete tear of the Achilles tendon in one ankle playing volleyball the afternoon before and was due for surgery to repair that tear.

 

I called the office yesterday to ask about the prescription and the assisant said that the doctor had come in that morning in an air cast before her surgey to write out the script (I told you she is an awesome doctor!).  So I went to pick that up, not daring to ask about the results of my bloodwork, since that was still a day away and it seemed rather self-centered of me to even inquire since she is recovering from surgery.

 

I am certain that my cholesterol is on the way down since I am doing everything in my power to send it in that direction.  I just got off the treadmill (45 minutes) and feel great.  The numbers will be sent to me one way or another sooner or later.

While it is only natural that when a criminal is given the blessing of the courts to be let freed on probation, it is less of a burden on the prison system and a better life for the wrongdoer.  It’s seemingly simple: the criminal is assigned a probation officer, who comes up with a plan for rehabilitation—community service, alcohol /drug intervention, anger management classes, etc, plus monthly meetings between the P.O. and the criminal for a set number of months.  It all works well until someone somewhere along the way f**** up, and the system breaks down.

My son, who was jailed for 90 days or so in 2005 for a couple serious felony charges (felonious assault, identity theft), was lucky to have been released on probation.  Although he was given bus money to report to his P.O. and could have taken a bicycle or bummed a ride from me or someone else, he chose not to go – except once. 

Does he sound like someone who is consciously or subconsciously sinking his own ship?  I am (was) his payee for social security disability, and the letter I got yesterday informed me about the warrant and the subsequent halting of his benefits.  He has probation violations (not showing up and not  completing other requirements) and because of those, the original charges all came rolling back like a huge ball of past garbage.  It saddens me that should my son be caught, he will inevitably end up in prison.  In fact, it frightens me to death, since my son is a quiet, introverted, intelligent (well, obviously not in all ways!), and thin and well-groomed young man. 

If I tell him to his face about being cut off of social security, I will cry and he will cry and it will just be a scene.  I cannot trust myself not to jump right back into mother mode and grab him and run with him to warmer climes – thus becoming a criminal myself: aiding and abetting a fugitive.  Therefore, my choice in how to tell him of this news is to have the letter dropped off in the mailbox of the house where he is staying right now.   Let him read and react in private.

If the county never makes good on the warrant and my son just remains free, what can he expect?  First of all, he will have no place to live, having burned all his bridges (Our house, his sister’s house.) The temperature is still in single digits outside. 

This is tough love.  Tough on him and tough on me!  I love my son very much – enough to let him go.  But it’s not without tears.

Driving home from the Superbowl party last night, we were warm, and cozy inside the cab of Dan’s pickup, but the outside world was frozen.  The world at midnight is not usually so desolate a place when one drives from Cleveland Heights to Westlake.  Parking lots are not usually empty and you can usually see people walking or standing on street corners chatting, especially after the Super Bowl.  But it was not the game the people would be talking about tonight; it would be the weather.  And they would not be idly conversing on a street corner, they would want to be inside.

 When the temperature with wind-chill is well below zero, Cleveland looks like a desert in a sandstorm.  I was almost expecting to see tumbleweed rolling across I-90.  There were few nomadic souls out braving their way single file along the one passable lane, perhaps coming from their own parties watching the Colts defeat da Bears.  When we made our way to our street, we noticed that our tire tracks would be the first there in a long time, maybe proving that we are truly insane for heading out on such a frigid day.

            We had already learned that all of the schools in this part of the state had shut down for today, and probably tomorrow as well, as this weather is not supposed to pass until mid week.  Nobody is outside – no children playing in the snow—no adults shoveling or even blowing the snow.  Icicles hang from every eave, and even in the times the sun beats down, there is no dripping or melting.  The world in Cleveland is frozen.