It was a whirlwind weekend, I tell you what. The snow did hit Richmond this weekend. Well, I use the term “snow” loosely as it was more ice and icky stuff. I know, technical term. Saturday was a great day of socializing and accomplishing some bit of craft work over at Corby and Thjora's. It was a bummer we had to bail early though as the weather got worse. To quote Christian, “All your friends are here, Genie, get off of Diaryland!”The rest of the weekend basically involved staying out of the elements and braving a trip to the grocery store. Monday I worked from home which was nice in that I had that option and crappy in that the rest of the known world was off from work that day. Ah, well, take the good with the bad.
My biggest adventure was actually just getting home today, more specifically getting into the Mini. The doors had frozen shut and NOTHING was getting them open. Not my pushing and Rich pulling and my shaking fists. So, not really wanting to get involved with it at the time, we opted for the escape pod method. I crawled in through the hatch and Rich shut me inside. One push to get my little hover craft out of the parking space and I was off into the blue.
This was a great idea until I realized that my car only had about 60 miles left on the tank of gas in it. My technologically advanced onboard computer told me that. The same one that told me it was 27 degrees F outside. All this on the car I couldn't actually get into and out of without assistance.
So I took off thinking that it will all thaw out by the time I get to a gas station. Silly Genie. I made it as far as exit 205 past Richmond. I chose some random Texaco station and pulled in. Hmm. How to get out? I could get my windows down but couldn't get the doors open. “No problem, I'll just go out the way I came in ...” Ah, the Mini doesn't have a latch (at least that I could find) to open the hatch from the inside. At this point, I'm lounging in the back of my little car looking longingly out the back glass before crawling back to the front of the car to roll down a window and ask for some help. Thankfully, the nice man in the pickup behind me let me out.
I started pumping gas into the little space pod and more and more folks kept asking about it. Apparently Eastern Richmond has never seen a Mini before. They asked how I liked it (“Great, when I can get in the doors!”), what kind of engine it had, if it were the super charged version (it is). I even had a man in a camoflauged ball cap and a toothless grin ask me about my air ram. It was a red letter day.
So once it was time to take off, I couldn't think of an easy way to get in again. Bo and Luke Duke would have been proud. My car has that feature where you can unlock the doors with the key and if you hold it, the windows roll down. Good thing, because I wasn't sure how I was going to get to the window toggles otherwise if I couldn't get inside. I loosened my boots so as to not mar the leather interior and high-sided it into the shuttle craft. There was no 01 on the side of my car and the Dixie horn did not play but the clientele at Texaco were all very impressed. To be honest, I was too. By the time I had made it home and then back to the American Pride Car Wash (with ultra soft hot water), I was starting to get the hang of it. But I've never heard such a satisfying sound as the click and whoosh of my door opening on its hinges.