Ice Trip

A little over a week ago I went and got myself a car wash.  I was thinking about it anyway because after a winter of salt and grime and what not my car was looking more beige than silver.  Even when it's clean it's really in-between the two.  Still, it looked really, really beige.

Then when I was getting gas the auto fill thingy didn't stop when it was supposed to and ended up dumping what I'm estimating was about a dollar fifty worth of gas (so really not that much.  Ha! Topical sarcasm!) on to the ground.  So then my car also smelled like gas.  Car wash was a must.

Part of the wash was some kind of Rain-X sealer thing at the end.  So when it snowed a few days later (of course) and then more or less immediately melted there was still water in little pools all over my car.  it ended up getting cold enough to frost overnight and it created some of the coolest, weirdest looking frost I've ever seen.

The trunk of my car all looked like this.  These were the bigger of the puddles really.  The roof and the hood of my car was covered in much smaller puddles that had some really funky frost crystals developing on and between them.

This was on the back window of my car.  I like how the tinting on the window gives the edges a light blue effect.

This is a close-up of one of the bigger puddles on the trunk.  I'm not saying, I'm just saying - that's a freaking cool picture in my opinion. One of the things I really like about all of these is that they look black and white, but really they're just white and grey on other grey.

This is on the hood of the car.  How cool is that?  It's like there were hundreds of little mohawks all over my car.

 No seriously.  I get that it's ice and by all accounts I should have just been annoyed with it (and I kind of was, I hate scraping my windows with a passion) but it just looked so freaking cool.

Come on.  Ice crystals.  Growing upward.  On my car.  Okay... so maybe that's really only enough explanation for me to be fascinated with it... That's fair.  But the point it I was fascinated by it.  

Then while I was playing around with a couple of these in Photoshop I started noticing that maybe, if I started playing around with some filters and colors, messed around with the contrast a little bit...

These could be seriously trippy.

And well... I like trippy.

April 20 - Or Why Yesterday Was Bound To Be Terrible.

I would like to start this by pointing out that roughly a week ago it was around 80 degrees outside and I seriously considered buying a pair of shorts.  (Then I remembered I hate shorts so decided against it.)

This is what waited when I walked out the door yesterday morning:

Now they say a picture is worth a thousand words so maybe this goes without saying, but I made it about two steps out the door and said, out loud, "son of a BITCH."

Like seriously - I'm not sure whatever allowed this to happen understands... It was gone.  It was all gone.  There was no more snow.  The snow all went away.  The grass was green.  We had a bonafide thunderstorm.  NOT thundersnow.  No, no.  A real, normal, not totally weird thunderstorm.  It was lovely.  

Don't get me wrong, I knew a lot of girls in high school who had to wear snow boots to their prom in May.  This is not the latest-in-the-season snow storm I've ever dealt with.

That doesn't make it less annoying.

So if it hadn't been so damn pretty I would have been really pissed.

I'd Rather Have Snow...

The Twin Cities have been experiencing the always overwhelming joy of freezing rain, rain, and/or frizzle (as one weatherman donned freezing drizzle the other day) on and off since, oh, Thursday or so. As someone has to... you know... go outside this is about as annoying as possible. Snow is a hassle, that is true, and on occasion it makes roads slippery and dangerous and that sucks. In Minnesota that does, however, require a goodly amount of snow. We are not an area that goes into crisis mode over an inch of snow. Most people I know turn their noses up at "winter weather advisories" that only predict three inches of snow.

Any amount of rain in January, though, is something to get all stressed out about. Basically it ensures that every surface - be it road, sidewalk, parking lot, or snow - will be an ice rink for the rest of the winter. In short it sucks.

One interesting this I did learn this week about freezing rain is that it sounds really cool. I guess I've never really been outside while it's been freezing rain... freezing raining? freeze raining? Hmmm. A few mornings ago we were experiencing some freezing rain while I was on my way to the bus stop. It was like being in the middle of a hail storm only the hail was about sand sized. We had already had a little bit of rain that had frozen over night and every drop/crystal made these tiny "ting" noises as they laded. It was a seriously surreal experience walking around in this rain that was... hard but sounded like a distant wind chime. So weird. Did you ever make "rain sticks" as a kid? When I made them we pounded nails into the sides of a cardboard tube and then filled it part-way with little rocks and when turned it, it sounded like rain? Mine never sounded like rain because it never sounded particularly wet, that it was almost metallic. That's kind of what this sounded like.

Another interesting thing about the rain/freezing rain is that it sort of crystallizes the top layer of snow. Suddenly the smooth surfaces of snow drifts have a lot more texture, which really makes it way more interesting.

Isn't a fit night out for man nor beast!

Here in the Twin Cities we're very used to snow. It comes every year, it beats the ever living crap out of us for several months in a row, and then it melts, we have a lovely summer and forget about it until winter comes 'round again. It's a pattern that is, if not comforting, at least familiar.

This year we had an exceptionally mild fall and our winter, though cold, lacked snow for much longer than normal. Two days before Christmas it started snowing. And it didn't stop until two days after Christmas.

It has since been varying degrees of yuck outside and it's been heavy hunker down mode for some time.

But here's one thing that most Minnesotans won't tell you:

Snow is pretty. Don't get me wrong - it's horrible. It's a pain in the ass, it's a hassle, it's cold and not fun and guh. It's tiring. Mixed with the ice, wind, cold and total lack of sunlight snow and winter are terrible. But the snow itself? It's pretty. It covers everything in this lovely blanket of marshmallowy goodness. Everything looks quiet and peaceful and sweet. It sucks to live with, but damn is it nice to look at.

This is taken out my parents' patio window on Christmas Eve night. That is straight snow nearly up to the seat of those chairs: it's not drifted or wind blown snow, that's just how it fell. It was ridiculous. I do love the reflection of the Christmas lights in the window, I think it adds a certain whimsy to the scene.