Icicles

We spent Christmas 2008 in Telluride, CO.  Pictured on the left is the icicle that was forming on the building in which we were staying.  The windows on the top right were in my Mom's room.  She became quite attached to those icicles as they grew longer every day.  She and I enjoyed standing at her window just looking at the icy daggers.  They were rippled, not smooth.  We discussed the dangers of walking beneath them without a helmet.  Then, one day, some rascals began to pelt them with snowballs.  It was all I could do to keep from running downstairs to scold them.  "Nooooooo!  Don't break them!  They're a form of entertainment for the Texans on the 3rd floor!"  Alas, one snowball did the deed.  It broke the longest icicle about 1/2 way up.  Mom and I looked at the fractured icicle and simultaneously said, "Awwwwww!"  Show's over, folks!  Go back to the living room for more cable TV!

These are but some of the icicles decorating my home's eaves this morning.  They are protected by my backyard fence and big bad me.  I am surrounded by neighbors whose children are grown and long gone.  If the boys were home, these delicate fingers of ice would have been transformed into swords and daggers by now.  Under my strict protection, I intend to stare at them as much as I please today.  Oh, the satisfaction of having my own private icicles to enjoy!

Bryce just texted me from Waco to say that the electricity at his apartment building went off this morning.  He is tucked away in a warm Baylor classroom right now.  His second text read:  "I left my water running."  The mother in me is hoping that he made sure to take the stopper out of the sink.

After reading reports of "rolling power outages" in the Metroplex, I laughed when my friend, Lori, commented that it was interesting to think about "someone sitting at controls turning power on and off for groups of people."  I told her that I envisioned something like a huge pipe organ with someone using his hands and feet to run the controls.  She came back with a Dr. Evil and Mini Me comparison.  This is one of those times when I think of Kathy.  She and I would keep this line of humor running throughout the day and into the next.  We would become the "power czar" and speak in his voice, "Ha-HA!  People of Plano!  I was stuck in de traffic on your Seentral Express for an hour in your town last October!  NO POWER FOR YOU!"  Laughing, we would dial each other up randomly throughout the day, "It is I, ze Power Czar!  For all the times you pointed out my newest peemples ven ve vere in high school...NO POWER FOR YOU!"   Ring-ring-ring!  A whispering voice.  "I will give you back your heat eef you promeese to go out in the bleezerd and feel my automobeel with petrol!"

I never get anything done on snow days.  The distraction of the amazing display outside my windows is just too much for me to resist.  And, so, I shan't.  Thanks, Lori, for the humorous volleys!


This just in!  A peek at the control panel for the Power Czar in the Metroplex: