Today our temperature spiked up to a toasty 42 degrees, causing flash floods as the ice melted all around the city. My car was standing in about 8 inches of water when I went out to run errands this morning (thank goodness I have an SUV)- I had to jump in the passenger door and crawl over to the driver's seat. When I came back and tried to parallel park in front of my building, my car slid along a huge sheet of ice into an illegal spot by the stop sign. I couldn't leave it there overnight, but my two front wheels were in a deep puddle and the two rear wheels were stuck on ice. I called for JP and he pushed with all his strength (and he's really strong!) and the car wouldn't budge. We tried to put mats behind the two rear wheels for traction, but the car still wouldn't move. We called our landlord who lives down the street to help push, but he was out in the suburbs. Then I thought of boiling water to melt the ice (it was the kind of super compacted, super frozen ice that you can't break with a shovel). So we filled our big pot and tea kettle with water and took trips running outside to pour it on the ice blocks. After three rounds of walking down the sidewalk in oven mitts holding a giant pot of boiling water, ten minutes of JP hacking at the ice with a hammer, and five minutes of JP pushing the car with all his might while I hit the gas- I was free!
This has been a ridiculous winter.
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Feel lucky you don't have your dog yet! G and I went slipping and sliding out in the field today. It was literally a sheet of ice with tiny patches of grass here and there. She wasn't so exciting about cold paws or about not finding the right patch ... and then it started to rain! She ran all the way back to the apartment. ha ha.
ReplyDeleteMake sure you get a nice doggy door once you get to Tejas. :-)
It was in the low 70's yesterday. I enjoyed the weather by going to a UT softball game. Yeah Austin!!!!
ReplyDeleteGood times. I hate that super compacted ice. Last week I swore something was wrong with my windshield wipers only to discover that there was an invisible sheet of ice on my windshield.
ReplyDeleteSO I guess mentioning that it is 82 degrees here in Orlando today wouldn't make you feel any better ;)
ReplyDeleteugh!
ReplyDeleteall we have out here are ice storms! I'd do anything to have snow instead.
I completely sympathize. Boiling water sounds a lot better than the Morton's table salt I was forced to use in December. Yes, this has been a ridiculous winter.
ReplyDelete