Surviving the ice

The sun is out, and all’s well in North Texas! Enduring three days of the great ice storm of 2013, my cabin fever reached an all time peak. I mean on day three I didn’t bother changing out of my PJs. Food supply grew low, due to the fact we spent the first twenty-four hours without power and my ice cream melted. How can a girl survive with no ice cream? So after much whining, my brave hubby agreed to go forth and forage. The problem was many stores were low and out of the basics such as milk, eggs, bread, beer and wine. Turns out, my daughter was right. Stock up Mom she said, but no, I didn’t believe we would be holed-up that long. Sitting in front of a roaring fire, (remember open damper next time), sipping red wine (lots of wine by day three), watching holiday movies or reading a good book sounds so Hallmark. Until it’s not.

By day three, the wine cooler was running low, and I considered finding an AA group for an intervention. Of course, there’s my dog, maybe he was hitting the sauce too. The holiday movies of old are worse than my memory; so we rented crummy movies on pay-per-view. Most important by day three the cupboards were bare, and I found myself making stuff from scratch. Mom would be so proud of me. But let’s be honest, cooking the old way sucks.

The average temp here during December is 58^o, but day three it barely reached a whopping 34^o. However, always the optimist, I hoped the weather report was right and listened for dripping of melting ice from the roof. The sound of the TV is background noise but the announcer droning on about the weather grabs my attention. I picked up the remote, turning up the volume. Freezing fog? In Texas? My mind went blank. I rewind the TV, yep, I heard him right. Fog will add another layer of black ice to the roadways. Well, shit. I hand back the remote to hubby and soon the roar of more football fills the air. I shuffled to the kitchen paused at the oven and considered sticking my head…. Instead, I opened the last bottle of wine and with the tattered cookbook my mother gave me forty years ago I searched for another easy and quick recipe. A definite contradiction. Sounds like a grilled cheese and Campbells tomato soup night, (the use by date was last week). Don’t judge, not everyone’s cut out to be Betty Crocker.