And since I cannot show you that I have completed another clue on my mystic waters shawl, the one that has been on the needles since November 2007, because it is FAR too large, I will indeed share my doofy moment.  By the way, I have only 4 clues left.

Now, to begin, we must realize that I drive a car that is 10 yrs old.  It has about 113K miles on it.  4wd subaru.  I’ve had the car forever, it was my first “real” car since the little ford aspire I bought before that counts as a golf cart not a car.  Anyhow, my subie has been with me through thick and thin for the last 9 years and has really done me well.  Now that she is getting a bit older, I worry about her.  Almost constantly.  I am in a state worry that she will die before September 2009 which is the earliest I could possibly afford to get a new car.

Now, as you probably already know, this year has been tough weather wise already.  It has been pretty consistently below 0 F for weeks on end.  And when I lived on the east coast there was a saying “too cold to snow” which the midwest did not get the memo about.  Out here, it snows at -11F with no trouble at all.

Last Thursday night (the night of the bat) we were getting a nasty ice/snow storm.  We got about 2 inches of freezing rain/sleet stuff and then got an inch of snow on top of that.  Everything was frozen solid.  The only way I could get the ice chipped off my car was to leave it running and heating up for half an hour before I started to chip away at it.  It took until Sunday for me to get the 3 inches of ice off the hood of the car and off of the wipers.  Even then, I couldn’t get the ice out of the tensioning system.  Chipping the ice off the car had to be done in shifts, as the wind chill was -26F so I’d go out, chip at the ice, and 3 minutes later have to go in to warm my hands up as I couldn’t feel anything at all.  So this tells you how miserable this year has been thus far weatherwise.

THE STORY (for those of you who want to skip).

The ice/snow storm put a sheet of ice in my driveway which I then had to chip away at on Friday.  Luckily, as I mentioned, my neighbor came by with his snowblower and helped out.  Then at about 10 PM the plow FINALLY made it past our house, dumping another load of ice back into my driveway.  Saturday found me chipping away at a mound of ice at the end of my driveway during yet another snowstorm.  I was miserable, and cold, and annoyed.  That ice was not budging!  So I manage to scrape enough off the top of the mound that I think I can get my 4wd subaru over it and I call it a morning.

Later that day, Bug is supposed to go to a friends house for a sleepover.  She has been really looking forward to it, so I know that not going would have pretty dire consequences.  I get her in the car, and attempt to pull out over the mound of ice at the end of the driveway.  First try I can’t get the back wheels over the mound.  Second try, wheels go over and then SSCCRRAAAAPE.  Ugh, that sounded bad.  So I pull forward into the driveway again and see what damage I’ve done to my car.  I go look at the mound I have scraped, and right in the middle of it I see a splatter of yellow liquid.  Crap, I’ve managed to do some real damage to the underside of the car and I am leaking.  I look under the car, I can’t see anything dripping.  I look under the front of the car.  Nope, no dripping.  What the heck was that all about?

I grab the shovel and scrape away at the ice some more in order to attempt to get the car out without scraping the bottom again.  I am worried about the car and I am sure it will die at any moment, but somehow Bug’s desire to go to her friends wins out.  I get the car out with no further damage.  Now, it is -4F out and I am cold!  I know that if the car dies we are going to be suffering.  So I am concerned.  I get the car to her friends house and deliver her there.  I worry that the car won’t start when I get out.  It does.  I go pick up the buttons for the tangled yoke cardi, and worry that the car won’t start.  It does.  I begin to drive home.

This is when it occurs to me that I had not backed the car up far enough to scrape the bottom of the engine.  Therefore I cannot see how I would have damaged something to make the car drip.  I think about it a little more.  Hm….that spray of yellow liquid…Um….have I just been in a panic over dog pee?

Happy Holidays everyone!