"You'll pay for this, Richard Bucket!"

I've always secretly wanted to burn rubber, only not on my own driveway. But last tuesday, when we got pummeled by a snow storm, burning rubber was exactly what I ended up doing.

You see, our driveway is sloped. It's about two car lengths – if you want to block the sidewalk – and the angle is a bit steep. It also has a "not-so-sweet" middle spot: stop below or above it and the car moves forward when you hit the gas, stop right on it and the only direction your vehicle's moving is backward. My SUV weighs two tons and has AWD and even she rolls back. My husband drives a Scion Tc with rear wheel drive and wheels that are 90% aluminum and only 10% rubber. The "cool" racing ones, even though they're supposed to be all-weather. Not to mention the car has no clearance. Starting to get the picture?

Last tuesday was a school snow day. I declared snow day for piano lesson as well and Danny and I spent the entire day indoors in our pjs. I watched our driveway rapidly disappear under the snow and become one with the street and the lawn. When Terry finally slid home that evening, he barely found it. He stopped with the front wheels right at the bottom of the "sweet"spot.

The plan was to shovel and then pull the Scion into the garage. I looked out at his handywork one time – he was moving with some ease, the snow in front of the car was completely gone. I was upstairs puttering around, when I heard him stop downstairs and call up: "Kate, get dressed and come out. You have to help me push the car!"

I guess we've been living together too long because the first thing that popped into my head, as I was throwing on snow boots and a coat over my pjs, was an episode of Keeping Up Appearances. Quoting movie lines in a time of crisis is usually Terry's territory. But all I could think of was Hyacinth in a large hat, white gloves, and still holding her purse, preparing to push their little blue car out of a muddy ditch on the way to QE2 cruise. As I came out of the house, I shook my fist in the air and yelled: "You'll pay for this, RIchard Bucket!" in an attempt to lighten the mood.

First I was the driver. I popped the car into the lowest gear, grabbed the steering wheel as tight as I could and gently touched the gas. Terry pushed. I felt the back ease a little bit, but the front was doing a reverse fishtail. And I wasn't even steering! Terry yelled "hit the gas!", I did. Front wheels spun, smoke came out, the front first slid to the left then to the right. Car progressed only two inches forward. I realized that I'm either going to hit my car (not an option) or the house (also not an option because we have new siding). I opted for the pile of snow on the right before switching jobs with Terry. If someone's hitting something valuable, I'd rather that someone be him. And so he steered and I pushed and watched the front wheels spin and smoke and fishtail, the smell of burned rubber soon filling the air. The tires permanently burned a serpentine pattern into the surface of our driveway. Our next door neighbors stopped their snowblowing and watched the show. Finally the front gripped and the car lurched into the safety of the garage. When I got inside the house, I looked down at my now-ruined leather gloves whose color coordinated with the interior of my car, and said to myself: "You'll pay for this, Richard Bucket!"

Bikini on my mind

It's single digits outside for over a week now. Earlier in the week we were way below zero. It is officially WARMER in Russia. And they're knee deep in snow, which makes the freezing temps easier to bear. Yesterday we got excited over snow flurries, but they didn't stick around. Further up north they did, but not around our area. And, in my book, this sucks. If I have to wear two pairs of pants and three shirts, double my kid's coats, and deal with a frozen car that decided to complain about the temperature, at least I want to be doing it in a foot of snow. That way, when I wake up in the morning, I will have the pleasure of investigating the tracks my four-legged neighbors left in my backyard while partaking in my morning tea. All I see now if dead grass. Same view as when it was over 100F. Um... no... not into it anymore...
Time for some retail therapy.

I was feeling like a white bikini. Don't know why. I bet I saw one in SI Swimsuit issue a year back and it's been lodged into my brain ever since. The white part I can't explain. The bikini part – I can. Two years ago we vacationed in Miami South Beach. It was a family vacation with Danny (who was 4 at the time) in tow. We were in heaven. My husband and I were thoroughly entertained every day by people-watching and spoiled by hotel staff (Lowes Miami Beach is the place to stay) and my son chased after a Brazilian model with long brown hair and floss for a bikini. I brought way too much clothes and one piece swimsuits. Big mistake. Huge!

I was miserable. Not that my suits were not cute, they were, and they were covering and tightening and lifting in all the right places. All the wrong things when you're in SoBe. You see, SoBe beaches are topless. And pretty much all of Florida beaches are full of Europeans that don't wear much on a beach. Any beach. Men wear tiny Speedos, most of it covered by a very large (and hairy) gut. Women of all sizes wear dental floss. The ones that one wearing one piece suits (like me) are from Midwest USA (also me). So after spending a week observing, and sweating since I stuffed myself like a sausage into a Donna Karan slimming concoction, I started thinking that maybe it's time to wear a bikini. Again. I used to wear them BD (before Danny), but AD (after Danny) I switched to a community-pool-mother-appropriate wear which is a one piece suit that covers as much as possible from waist down.
Then, my best friend came to visit from Russia last summer.

And knocked some sense into me. When we went to our community pool to lounge around while Danny was having his swim lesson, she looked at my one piece modest number and said: "Why?" She was wearing a two piece ruffled bikini. "What is this? No one wears this in Europe," she commented. After she left, I spent the rest of summer thinking about what she said as I observed ruffled black and brown full-coverage numbers in the pool. And promised myself to buy a bikini. Which I did last week.

It's white and made out of triangles and straps. They're much thicker than dental floss, don't worry. It was waiting for me in my mailbox when I went to get Danny from school. I sat in my car, badly parked (who can park on a curb?), with my buttwarmer on high and heat blasting, all bundled up, unwrapping the package and investigating tiny pieces of bright white fabric. It was frozen, like the rest of my mail. I tried it on as soon as I got home (it warmed up in my purse)... I look extremely European!

Now, if only my treadmill would just arrive already...