Well, a bunch of states (including New Hampshire) declared *states of
emergency* in anticipation of Winter Storm Juno hitting the east coast.
So far, not such a big deal. Snow, yes, but not as much as they said there would be.
Winds? Not much so far.
No raids on the grocery stores up here by the French toast brigade (you
know, milk, bread & eggs). Everyone pretty much kept on doing what
they normally do.
The roads are being kept fairly clean. New Hampshire is darn good at
that! They scrape, salt and sand with a determined ferocity. They even
have small scrapers that clean the sidewalks! My neighbor comes over and
scrapes my drive and parking area. Every second truck has snow blades
on it up here, I swear!
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Remember *A Christmas Story*? Remember Swartz, the kid who stuck his tongue on a flagpole?
Well, I sorta pulled a Swartz a couple weeks ago. I had to run to the
store and, before I went out the door, I put on hand lotion. Kinda
necessary here in cold weather, otherwise your skin gets all cracked
from the cold. So, put on hand lotion, put on my fingerless gloves. I
wear them because I feel like I can't drive properly if I can't feel
the steering wheel. Go out to the car, start the engine, and because
there had recently been article after article about how warming up a car
was a waste of gas and harmful to the environment, went ahead and grabbed the steering wheel. My hand-lotioned unprotected flesh immediately adhered to the plastic steering wheel. Plastic? PLASTIC!? I thought it only worked on metal!!!
What followed was the most excruciating 10 minutes of my life, or so it
seemed at that moment. I screamed, I cried, I doubt my fingerprints have
grown back yet.
Never. Again. I now warm the car up thoroughly!
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I am still getting used to living in such a small town. Besides the
obvious things of folks waving, courteous clerks in local stores and
everyone knowing your name, there are few other things...
People leave their cars running when they go into stores. In El Paso,
especially in some neighborhoods, your car would be stolen in
nano-seconds. Here, it's normal. Especially in cold weather! No one
worries about their car being stolen. And if someone does have a car
stolen, it is usually returned within a couple of hours, not because the
cops caught the thief, but because the person that took it brought it
back. Usually a neighbor that had an emergency and needed a vehicle
right damn then. (Most folks around here leave their keys in their car,
btw. ) And it usually come back gassed up.
**********************
Lamb,
ReplyDeleteYour poor fingers!!! Hopefully they'll heal soon.
Stay warm, and enjoy your new neighborhood and small town hospitality.
1: I'm glad to hear it hasn't hit as bad & hope you all stay safe.
ReplyDelete2: I had laugh, hard, sorry. I did the same thing as Schwartz when I was 8 living in SD, tried to turn the doorknob with my tongue while carrying groceries for my dad...oh dear I can still feel the pain when I left most of my taste-buds on the doorknob, hehe. I am sorry for your poor fingers, it is extremely painful.
3: Small town living is awesome! Sounds like here. It can get a bit unnerving that everyone (even folks you don't officially know yet) know your business, it's also nice to know that you have a whole town's worth of support & someone is always watching your back.