Wednesday, January 13, 2016

The people vs. winter


I knew it was going to snow yesterday. My BFF was coming for our standing breakfast date at the local diner. But Monday I had a text, bad storm starting at 3 a.m. through noon. We rescheduled for Friday. We’ve talked about making Friday our standing day; Pam, the owner of the diner, makes cinnamon rolls that day. You must call ahead and reserve your rolls, but Carol will do that.

Pam keeps a saucepan of homemade caramel sauce if you want it. I don’t; too much sugar for me. However, soon she will be making hot cross buns, and those two lovely stripes will go down nicely. When I was very small, my grandmother and I would ride the trolley to Hough Bakery and come home with the box, tied with red and white string, of hot cross buns.

We had one minor snowstorm this season, and my road was not its usual pristine self when I went to work in the morning. I teased the new road super, when would he get to my road? He said he had salted twice, and when the snow eased on out he’d go back and plow them all. And he did. Not the sort of attention I was used to, but the road indeed was passable.

My drive begins half way up the last hill; it’s a sharp left onto the road. They never plow our apron onto the road because our apron is concrete, not asphalt as indicated in our zoning regulations. When we built that drive in 1988 we didn’t know zoning regulations. We just forged on. 

Municipal plows do not have pads under the blades to protect concrete, so our apron generally was not cleared. The last two winters the road super took pity on me and lowered the snow so I could get out. “Paycheck protection,” Tim called it. Perhaps I will mention it to the new guy, later on.

Tuesday morning was thickly white. I’m still armpit deep in all the details that will make the rest of my township year easy, so I needed get in. The drive was deep enough in snow to grab my tires, but I kept on, slow and easy through the stuff on the apron, slow and easy onto the road, slow and easy up the hill to the level. I am so glad I do not live at the bottom of my road. Every one down there knows when to go back in, and wait to be cleared.

The county road was no cleaner than mine, and Virginia Kendall, down into the valley, was most unkempt of all. I went straight on, to state route 303. Surely the state route into the valley would be pretty clean at nine a.m.; in spite of the fast falling snow.

And, it was not. In defense of snow plow teams, it was snowing heavily. On the other hand, clearing the roads is what we pay for. I made a slow and easy left turn, straightened up and began heading down. Not two hundred feet along, a police car was marking the descent of a car into the shallow ravine, burying itself completely in the bushes.

That’s one greenhorn driver, I mused, and kept on driving.



27 comments:

  1. I think you have earned and deserve a little extra attention on that concrete apron.

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  2. A'h now in this part of the world UK & Ireland: the traditional cinnamon spiced hot cross bun, has a sticky glaze a with pastry cross and is made with a buttermilk dough containing a liberal amount dried fruit - generally sultanas.
    Some people cut them in half through the diameter, toast and spread with butter. My preference was to eat them as they were.

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    1. A hot cross bun is a hot cross bun, the world around, I think. I can recall them with dried currents, but mostly raisins.

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  3. The cinnamon rolls sound delicious! I think I too would change the day of getting together with someone based on those :)

    Always fun to get used to driving again on snow/ice, especially the first really big snowstorm of the season.

    betty

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  4. Slow and steady wins the race on a snowy day.

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  5. Cinnamon rolls? Mmmm. They do sound good. Sadly hot-cross buns have been in our stores for weeks. Since just after Christmas. Chocolate eggs are here too. So very wrong.
    Drive safely. You are important to a lot of people. In life, and here.

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  6. Here where snow often covers the roads for months at a time, and only the main thoroughfares are plowed, people get a little 'too' used to driving on the stuff. They start driving as though it's not there, often with the same results.

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    1. I felt that's what happened to the car in the ravine. I think it had been west bound, and wound up east bound and down. I didn't have time to study on it, though.

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  7. I used to never mind driving in the snow; it was the ice that caused me great anxiety. Now a flake comes down and I begin to shake. I have become one of those greenhorn drivers. Better to stay home and eat sone cinnamon buns.

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  8. You are going to be shocked, but I've never had a hot cross bun before. I'm sure I would like it and the buttermilk one sounds good because I like dense, yeasty things. Snow? No. The day after Christmas, they had removed all the holiday fare to the side sales and replaced it with Valentines, my least favorite holiday. Unless, you count all the chocolate.

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  9. I've never had a hot cross bun, either. They sound very nice indeed, and they sound as if they are part of the tradition in your area. Where I live in Texas, we eat a lot of biscuits, burritos, and brisket. A hot cross bun would be a welcome addition.

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  10. driving slippery snowy roads vs. eating hot cross buns - that would an easy pick for me.

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  11. Hate driving in snow, had to do it when we lived in Colorado, but kept snow tires on my car all year round. I've never eaten a hot cross bun, but the pictures I've seen of them look good.

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  12. Before this last batch of snow we had the most beautiful hoar frost. When I woke up and looked out my window the neighbor's cedar tree looked like something from a Thomas Kinkade painting.

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  13. Amazing that Ohio has had such little snow. Maybe Jan and Feb will bring much more. I'm sure Ohio needs the wet snow melt for the fields, woods, and gardens of your state. Oregon is getting plenty of rain which is so dearly needed as the summer was nothing but droughty. -- barbara

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    1. It's been years since we've had such an open winter. There were inches and inches of rain, however, and we said thank goodness it isn't snow.

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  14. Not having to drive in snow is one of the biggest perks of working for myself.

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  15. Ummmm... buns.... Saturday here is cinnamon bun day at the market... any maybe one with caramel... don't know if they'd be called hotcross buns, but close enough for me. Hot cross buns makes me think of an English nursery rhyme... Hey... I did payroll at the local hospital and they sent a Humvee (National Guard vintage) out to pick me up one year... couldn't let a little snowstorm keep them from getting paid.

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  16. I was a good snow driver. I'm glad I don't have to do it now. People in Jacksonville drive like maniacs.

    Love,
    Janie

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  17. I'm a wuss. If I saw snow outside my door, I'd lock it and go back to bed.

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  18. We haven't had much snow here. And when it comes I will just stay in!

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  19. Snow again - and I would be a greenhorn driver too - thus I take the subway... They announced that in Berlin temperature will fall soon - at the moment snow has melted. Stay safe!

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  20. Hari OM
    I drove over from Dunoon to Edinburgh in snow blizzard last weekend. Either side of the country, though, no snow; both towns are too close to coast for it to lie... that may change as they are promising us sub-zero temps by the weekend! I may stay put here in Auld Reekie. Dunoon's not going anywhere...

    mmmmmmmm hot cross buns.....cinnamon buns...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... YAM xx

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  21. I would be housebound all winter if I lived where it snowed.

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  22. That last photograph is certainly wintry Joanne. Like ellen I hate the snow and feel like (and wish I could be) being housebound. We had a blizzard this morning and it is freezing cold although a bright sun later in the day melted the snow away.

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  23. Two occasions stand out among the many in which I drove in falling snow. Those two times I very nearly kissed the ground when I got home. Except my lips would have frozen to it. We've had a very open winter here as well, up until the day after Christmas. We are on our third storm now.

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  24. I don't like to drive in the snow, but I do enjoy being snowed in. Makes everything so quiet.

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