Friday, January 12, 2007

Nature WANTS us to go crazy!

Well, I’m officially bummed out. Back in November, Moonshot and I booked a stay at a bed and breakfast over in Hermann. It’s a quiet little German town with a host of wineries. Since late November and December was so crazy with travel, we figured a January get-away would come just in time to preserve our parental sanity. MoMa and Aunt Gimpy would come up and watch Norah overnight and everyone would be gloriously happy.

However, despite weeks and weeks of spring-like weather, Mother Nature has decided that we are not to be awarded a quiet break from child rearing. An ice storm is currently racing its way across the state. By tomorrow the roads are to be covered with a thick sheet of undriveable ice. We all discussed it last night and again this morning while pouring over satellite imagery both online and from the Weather Channel. We decided that MoMa and Aunt Gimpy would still make their run ahead of the storm this afternoon. Even if they got stuck here and we had to cancel our B&B trip…at least we’d all be together and the extra hands about the house and new conversations would be a welcome relief of its own.

I just got off the phone with MoMa. She was rolling out from her home down at the Lake of the Ozarks. The weather here is still 55 degrees and while it was drizzling at the Lake, the thermometer was holding at just above freezing…so it looked like she could beat it. However, the trip from there to here starts off with a northern trek to the little town of Kingdom City before turning East on I-70. I had the forethought to check the current weather at Kingdom City. Freezing Rain. MoMa fought, she suggested calling a local business up there to see if the roads were bad yet. But I reminded her that it didn’t matter if the roads were bad NOW…what mattered is what they’d be like in an hour and a half when she and Gimpy got there. I told her to turn around and go back home. Bless her, she protested and wanted alternate routes to St Louis, but in the end I just couldn’t risk encouraging her to make the trip.

So, Moonshot and I will have neither our weekend away nor company in the house. And I’m more than a little bummed about that.

Someone needs to tell me a corny joke or two to cheer me up.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why did Beethoven get rid of his chickens?

Because they kept going, "Bach, Bach, Bach."

Anonymous said...

Also:

How do you stop a charging rhinocerous?

Take away his credit card.

Mark said...

Dude. Sorry. Dang Mother Nature.

It must be a huge system, because we're supposed to get freezing raining starting tonight -- here in the Dallas area.

Craziness. Jolted from the highs of 65 to freezing rain, all in about a 12-hour span.

Mark said...

Where do Russians keep their little armies?

Up their little sleevies.

Moksha Gren said...

Those were wonderfully awful. I'm feeling better already. Although more cheese is alwasy welcome.

Wow...freezing in Dallas. If the number of SUVs with Texas plates I saw in the ditches while I lived in Colorado is any indication...you should really stay off the roads for the next few days, Mark.

And if you don't hear from me for a few days...just assume that the pitiful power grid in St Louis had another massive blackout due to the storm. Weee! ;)

One Wink at a Time said...

Aw, Mokker. That's a big bummer. More, I'm sure, since you almost pulled it off. Hope it doesn't get too bad there.

Two cannibals were eating a clown. One cannibal turned to the other cannibal and said, "Does this taste funny to you?"

Too bad Simon isn't around. He'd make you laugh. Oh, speaking of Simon... JuJu and I and Shannon are borrowing Moonshot and we're all going to go up and take Amy out. I'll send pics of Amy groping your wife if you'd like. Hey, thanks for babysitting, you're a pal.

John Haney said...

What do you do when your nose goes on strike?

Pick-it!

This was the ONE joke my dad told all the time... He had a few more for me last year when I was stressed about work. If I remember, I'll be back!

One Wink at a Time said...

Hi Jet,
I'm guessing your household runs on some other kind of power, like maybe gas or alcohol fumes? ;-)

Anonymous said...

I can't believe the weather you guys have been getting. We have only had one night of weather that canceled some things. We just got our significant snowfall on Jan 1. It's possible that we could have only three months of winter this year rather than five! Will you be able to reschedule the stay at the B and B?

Maybe this will entertain you a little? Our dog has become a "peeping winkie". Last night, she stopped at three random houses and just stared at them. I thought of you,OWAAT, and TALTAP.

Moksha Gren said...

Day Two of Our Exile - We stayed relatively warm in our house yesterday thanks to our gas logs and some hastily re-hung doors pulled up from our basement that kept the heat locked in our living room. However, as the day wore on and it became clear that power would not be returning by the time the sun set...we began our exodus to O'Fallon. We packed preishable foods into coolers on our back patio, locked the cats away from the sunroom incase a limb should fall and smash an escape hazzard, and left word with the neighbors across the street to keep an eye on the Gren-stead.

We got a call this morning that a large section of our bradford pear collapsed across our driveway. Luckily I had forseen this and moved the Mini away from the weak-limbed giant. So, no harm done.

I'm currently sitting on Duran and Dolly's couch...watching the Seahawks and Bears battle it out, waiting for a call telling me that power is back. I'm not too optimistic since the two icestorms to pass through in the last two days have cause untold destruction, and there is another storm coming through this evening, and AmerenUE is woefully slow at returning power to the St. Louis area. So, I have my fingers crossed...but I'm not overly hopefull.

Thanks for the jokes and yes, we are able to reschedule our B&B stay.

One Wink at a Time said...

Elsa, before I say anything I better thank Mokker Man for providing a forum here for strangers to meet and converse...
Lol, she (the dog) was just checking out the owner's decorating skills and seeing if she could see anyone having sex. Nothing to worry about ;-)
Trying to figure out TALTAP. I'm usually better at that than I am today.

One Wink at a Time said...

Wow Mokker, we must have clicked within seconds of each other. That is usually a job for Superman. I mean, you and Simon.
Sorry to hear of your uprootament. Hope things get back to normal soon.

Mark said...

Sensing (and watching on TV) the impending icy doom, we uprooted ourselves and now I sit in my in-laws' kitchen. Ben and his grammy just went down for a nice winter's nap, and the lady and I are going to brave the short trip to the Target. (in-laws have a gas-powered fireplace thing, while all our heat is 'lectric).

Here's hoping your house makes it through okay.

Moksha Gren said...

Wink - Taltap is Elsa's husband. It's a rough acronym for "Takes a Long Time to Take A Picture."

Mark - It sounds like Dallas escaped relatively unharmed by the ice. Glad you guys missed the brunt of it. In the end, we were pretty lucky too. We had gass logs to huddle around, gas water heater to shower with. What really sent us into exhile was the 5pm sundown.

Si - Welcome back!! And thanks for the humor. I'm in much higher spirits today...but Hedberg is always welcome.

Jet - I can't help but notice your need to capitalize "Comedians" and "Funny." It seems you now ascribe near holy levels of grammatical significance to your new hobby. Such ego ;)

All - Power returned to the house last night but we opted to stay put out at Duran and Dolly's since our faith in the grid's ability to withstand last night's ice storm was low. Luckily, the rain last night never froze and conditions seem to be returning to normal. I still need to call someone to remove the huge tree laying across our driveway...but other than that, we've escaped pretty easily.

One Wink at a Time said...

I'm going to go out on a limb here and venture to say that just maybe Simon has been itching to talk and type for a few days now...

Now that I know we all Love Mitch, it's apparent that we were all destined to be pals in more ways than one. (Thanks for the re-it Simon, one can never get enough)
Did I ever tell you I used to have a fan club at work, our motto was WWMD?

Taltap- that's Funny.

Hi Jet. :-) I do that too, capitalize for emphasis and accentuation. It's a common practice among Mensa Members.

Who else but Mokker can post, say 4 times a month and then just sit back and let us have conversations that last for days and days and cover the entire gamut of modern society???

Anonymous said...

wink-You freaked me out...so I took the dog in to get spayed. Didn't want her getting any ideas. Well, okay the appointment was already made before you told me she is into watching people have sex. And Moksha already explained TALTAP.

Simon-I liked the purple people, map &pins, the phone, the fire exit, and the payment plans. Hey there wasn't much in that that didn't make me laugh. Did Mitch Hedberg wear shaded glasses and give a kinda stoned delivery? While I was thinking I had never heard of Mitch Hedberg before, I realized that maybe I had seen a Comedy Central show with him. I thought he was hilarious and was pretty bummed when I heard he died.

Mark said...

Loved the Hedberg. I admit, I didn't know who he was until I saw in a very long Entertainment Weekly article that he had died. He was hilarious. I don't understand how I, as a lover of stand-up comedy, could have missed him.

It's a same he's gone.

One Wink at a Time said...

Mokker, Mark spelled Shame wrong. Go git him!
And Elsa, what if I tell you the dog is casing the joints he's peeping? You can get some really cool crap that way.

Word Verification:
POBNHU
Phones on Balloons Never Hang Up.
(If you think "Helium", it works-you know, the old kind of phones. The receiver is on the balloon...)

La La La