#1 Son, who spent the night at a friend’s house, just called. The conversation went something like this:

#1 Son: Hi, Mom. Sorry I didn’t call sooner but I slept late.

Mom [who had called three times and sent two text messages to his cell phone, and was now confused by the background noise that sounded like a crowd of people]: Where are you?

#1 Son: I’m on the Max.

Mom: Where are you going?

#1 Son: I thought I’d better come home.

Mom: I can’t pick you up at the transit center.

#1 Son: Why?

Mom: Because there’s 1/2 inch of ice all over everything. I have no chains. Remember yesterday when I told you that you needed to land somewhere that you didn’t mind staying?

#1Son: But I talked to my friend in Oregon City and she looked out the window and said she thought it looked OK.

Mom: We don’t live anywhere near Oregon City. We live on the west side. We live on the north side of a hill. If you have to come home, you will have to walk.

#1 Son: Isn’t that kind of … dangerous?

Mom: Yes, but right now that’s the only way to get here. Do you have an extra pair of socks with you? Put them on over your boots and that will give you traction.

#1 Son: Really? Cool! But, no, I don’t have any extra socks. [pause] Guess I’d better go back where I was. I can still get there.

Mom: Good idea. Be careful. It’s icy.

#1 Son: Can you pick me up later?

Mom: Maybe tomorrow.

15 minutes later… the phone rings again…

#1 Son: I’m back at my friends. It’s really icy out there!

Oh… really?

This year, for the first time in recorded history, my Camelia actually started blooming at Christmas. This is a picture of a bloom today, rimed in ice. I thought I’d better get a snap while I could. I doubt the flowers will look this good after the ice melts. Click on the picture for the larger version.

When I moved into this house, I planted this camelia outside the kitchen window. The plan was that I would have flowers to gaze out at in the cold and gray depths of winter. Apparently I forgot to inform the camelia of the plan. It has bloomed in July, March, September, November… every time of year except Christmas. It was obviously confused.

Finally, after 8 years, the first bud popped open on Christmas eve. It would have kept going for another couple of weeks, if not for the ice.

Sung to the tune of I Love Paris In The Springtime.

Seriously… I was born and raised in southeastern Idaho, where it regularly stayed below zero for weeks on end; where we used to pray for snow so it would warm up. In my checkered youth, I once drove a road closed by snow in an attempt to get to a ski hill. (The ski hill was closed, too, it turned out.)

So I find all of this pretty amusing.

But, I’ve lived in Portland for 30 years now. Am I venturing out? No way! I will stay safely at home and laugh hysterically at all of those drivers out there who think they can go normal freeway speeds during an ice storm.

I’ve been sick this week. Sick, and busy as hell when I was at work. And busy when I was at home. So there hasn’t been much blogging. I’m sure that has disappointed my two readers greatly. But there hasn’t been much I could talk about. I haven’t even been knitting. Thursday I sat in my rocking chair like a zombie with a cup of tea at my elbow and watched the entire second season of Sex And The City on On Demand. Hey… it was free.

Currently I’m watching a reporter freezing out in Troutdale. My cousin used to produce news stories for one of the local stations. I once asked him how badly a reporter had to piss him off in order to be sent to Troutdale during the Storm Of The Winter. He just laughed.