| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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day six of the freezing winter weather, our longest snap i can remember. it's snowed every day, sometimes sticking and sometimes melting to be refrozen into sheets of ice. yesterday it was slush. i stepped out of the big pink en route to my next address.... interesting. step forward, transfer weight/boot would slip back a couple millimeters (not something you'd see, but feel), lift back foot. repeat. wanna stay warm? stay inside. can't stay inside? STOP WHINING. suvs slipping on the ice, drivers (still?) talking on cell phones. yes, it's true, portlanders (and by portlanders i mean dumbasses from wherever they come from, true portlanders are rare) can't drive in this stuff. it's embarrassing and dangerous. i'm getting ready to catch the bus to work, half dressed and already almost entirely covered. i'm managing to wear wool socks for the first time in ages, by wearing sock liners underneath. certainly warmer than cotton. it'd be a lot easier if i could manage to ignore the itching and just wear the stuff. |
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I hear children shouting outside and a police siren. More ominously, I do not hear the sound of our heating system. Last year, the heat broke for a couple of days and it was miserable inside. |
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and then what happened? |
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snow's accumulated to a foot in places. went out last night on bikes (two miles took half an hour and they way back we stuck to arterials) and built a five foot tall snow penis with large balls and a fern frond sticking out the top. lots of drinking and shrieking and we knocked each other over and dived in the snow. today the co-op had almost no bread. biking is impossible except for major roads that are getting some traffic. i don't mind walking, seeing as i do it all the time. buses still run, but the switches on the trains have frozen so they're running shuttles. so far we've maintained our sanity. some have, anyway. ... my friends (gabelotom) who live a half-mile due south got chickens a week and a half ago, little balls of fluff about a month old. in the coop with a 150 watt for warmth. yesterday morning they awoke to 20-foot flames and put it out with buckets filled in the bathtub and kitchen sink. no trace of peeps in the embers. the first casualties of the snow. |
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garden boxes nearly buried. mountain bike leaning against garden box is barely recognizable. |
emptied pockets. phone is missing. |