Walking in a Wonderland of Ice
Friday, December 1, 2006
Collette woke to a white world that morning on Laurel Peach’s 23rd birthday, looking out past the two giant candy canes OLeif had taped in the window. The trees had been hung in icicles. And as usual in Missouri, all schools were canceled for the day. It was quiet out. A first snow on the first of December and the wind blew.
Those were the kind of days that reminded Collette of her old dream – if it could have been called a dream – to live in the very north part of Norway as a sort of hermit. Comical thought in some regard.
And seeing as there were more than 500,000 people without power that morning, the Combs were also at the mercy of the cold (as Florissant dwellers tended to easily lose power for extended periods of time) and were coming over to the house for the day. Rose blew into a frenzy of frantically cleaning the house in preparation for their arrival, as indicated by her message to Collette at 8:30 in the morning:
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhh”
Collette advised her to fix cocoa and a hot meal for them, if possible. Shepherd and Malaya were also without power. But the sun did crack the surface shortly after eight allowing the flurries to temporarily suspend.
And because the car’s doors were frozen shut and OLeif and Collette had ingeniously not remembered to remove the ice scraper from the car before the freezing rain had intensified, there was no hope. OLeif spent an hour or so brushing and cracking and spraying the door handles with alcohol, helping the neighbors move their car over the ice and cut his finger before calling it quits. So OLeif and Collette both remained home from work that day, OLeif working from his computer while listening to Dad’s Puritan Prayers.
And despite the ice and snow, the kids had been invited over to the Hobcoggins for sledding that afternoon before the Combs would arrive later that afternoon and to spend the night.
It was also the sort of day that Collette wished she was learning French so that she could decipher her old book of French fairy tales. But there were always other things to be done and the cleaning and the laundry saw work that day after a pot of cream of wheat had been made.
Later in the afternoon a dagger of an icicle hung from the roof, about a yard long. If Linnea had seen it, she might have broken it off and saved if for a Popsicle.
Later, OLeif received a call from from the oldest Coca-Cola boy who had been out to be interviewed by the guy with the chickens. The gentleman had been looking for a new full-time employee for his business involving construction, and OLeif had suggested that he interview Tennessee. And for a guy who owned his own chickens, he seemed to be pretty well-off. Tennessee would know by Monday if he got the job.
The school play that Susie was directing was once again canceled. It had proved to be a day best spent at home.
Come evening, OLeif almost walked across the street to buy a snow shovel to dig out the car. Eventually, he was indeed able to dig out the car himself by kicking down the ice mound behind it, and then promptly left to borrow his mom’s snow shovel. And this was after five and a half inches of snow, unlike other parts of Missouri that had received twelve and sixteen inches.
Meanwhile, Collette hoped that Rose had been able to get everything ready in time for the Combs’ arrival. And Grandma, Mom, and Carrie-Bri were on the road back home from Kansas City.