"Snice................Sneet.............&................Slice,............Baltimore's 'Wintry Mix'..........................CWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!................"

Good Evening;

Well it started to snow at 11:00 pm. on the dot last night as I was walking to the gas station from the shed after dropping off my bags and relocking the shed.

It was cold enough on all but the recently traveled parts of the roadway or parking lot. When I was in the Giant it was a madhouse, as everyone here in Baltimore freaks out at any mention of snow/sleet/ice and descends upon the food stores like very selective locusts denuding the shelves of milk, bread, and toilet paper.

When I left the gas station at 11:30 pm. there was already a 'primer coat' of very fine snow on everything. 

At some unknown to me point in the night after 1:30 am. it began to sleet and then changed to freezing rain giving all the horizontal and most of the northerly facing vertical surface a 'clear-coat' glaze of ice. 

I had no reason nor desire to get up early so I stayed inside my sleeping bag and pulled the quilt up over my head and dozed on and off from 5:00 am. to 11:00 am. (with 3 or 4  quick unveiling's to make deposits in the 'post digestive, after hours liquid collection bottle')..lol. When I did get up, after listening to the crunch and spin of tires all morning, the parking lot near the shed was coated with a hard, thin, but solid sheet of ice that was too thin to crush and too smooth to slow footprints. Farther from the buildings the "snice" (snow-ice) coating was thick enough to show the tire tracks of a car that had pulled in and circled and faced out and sat for a while, a couple times. 

After I had put the cold steel lock on the colder steel chain and was standing under the carport trying to warm up and get the blood thawed in my hands and fingers and then dancing around trying to ease the related pain and regain use of same....a Baltimore County cop car pulls in, circles round, and sits, facing outward towards the road in the previous tracks.

I just continued on pulling my gloves on and grasping  my bags as best I could and headed on past him/her to cross the street to the RiteAid shopping center to collect 3 of my prescriptions that were ready today.

It seems as if this particular police officer must have just been assigned/transferred/promoted to patrol this particular section of Pikesville, on the day shift, and this is their chosen 'hidey-hole' for lunch-paperwork-'resting', etc. For general principles, the purpose of basic avoidance of authority in any form, and just S.O.P., I think I'll just have to figure out their schedule and time my emergence from my plugged and patched, rapidly deteriorating, cardboard and  plywood chrysalis for his/her periods of road patrol.

After hitting the RiteAid, then the Giant for coffee, et.al., I fought my way through the incoming tide of crazed shoppers who braved the blizzard like conditions...HA!... to risk life, limb, and Lexus to stock up on staples for the Ravens vs. New England in tomorrow's AFC Championship game.....(a second wave should be there tonight and at least two more Sunday morning, the 'churchers' and the last minute scavengers..........lol.).

Then I waited 40 minutes for an MTA bus that never showed, catching another route that was either 20 minutes late....or 20 minutes early..........on both routes they are on main roads that had been cleared for hours and were pretty much devoid of traffic.

Then when I caught the connecting #58 the driver not only closed the door as I was stepping in, and could go no further because of the people in front of me depositing their fares, but then slammed the bus around the 90 degree right hand turn onto Clarks Lane before not only I, but 2 other passengers, one elderly and with a cane, could even get to the seats, much less sit in them, causing us to nearly fall on the snow and ice slick flooring. If another passenger had not jumped up and grabbed the older woman with the cane she would have went face first into the steel support pole!

Of course when people complained to the driver he ignored them and refused to respond. 

Cell phone cameras are handy in situations like this....as the driver is about to find out from the man who sat in the very front right seat covertly filming the speedometer!

Anyway....made it to the coffee shop and here I sit.

I'm going to pack up early to give myself time to negotiate the slippery sidewalks to the bus stop on the bridge.....

Later............................Dave