Biking in the Snow, a Stuck Motorist, Ice Cream!

About three-quarters of the way to school this morning, a woman flagged me down to ask for help getting her car unstuck from the driveway. I parked my bike on the roadside and waded through the snow to help push, but it was a lost cause. Even with (relationships presumed) her son and partner helping to push, it wasn't going anyway. Older rear-wheel drive Mercury with one back wheel in a depression and the other one too high up to get traction. But I tried!

I enjoyed my first ride in significant, active snow. I did have a few problems. I hit a pothole I couldn't see well and the jolt was enough to crack the mount for my U-Lock, which promptly fell off the bike. I had to stop, pick it up, and stick in my panniers. I'll contact Kryptonite and see about a replacement. I also had issues with my bike wheel sliding back and forth a bit in places. My planned bad-weather commuting bike for next winter will have wider tires, and possibly studs. That said, my skinny slicks bite into powder fairly well and are manageable at least. Still, I stuck to plowed thoroughfares, and rode right down the middle of the right lane on Sheridan (a four lane road through Kenosha). People who need to pass can go around in the other lane.

Traffic was light today, so that helped. *smiles* Still, I think I might ask the archivist about leaving at 4 instead of 5. It would be nice to have sunlight for the ride home.

It's a good thing I left early. Even with stopping to assist the motorist, I made it to class on time, albeit without time to park my bike at the usual racks. I used the not as good racks that my U-lock doesn't fit on outside the building with my first class and moved it later.

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Oh, and today is the back-to-school ice cream social on the skywalk between the union and Molinaro Hall. Yay free ice cream!

Eleven Bottles of Mustard

There's a lot of stuff that sits on the dishwasher in the kitchen. (It's a free-standing model on wheels that gets moved around.) I started putting some of the extra stuff into the can cupboard. The giant jar of peanut-butter (there were two). The giant bottle of ketchup (again, two). Then I looked at the bottles of mustard and started counting them.

To be fair, there are many different kinds of mustard represented. But I think it's kind of ridiculous that we have eleven bottles of mustard sitting on top of the dishwasher. Eleven. I kind of feel like that encapsulate the problems with keeping stuff organized in this house. Nobody really claims any responsibility for things, but they don't want to get rid of them, and they pile up.

Oops. Make that thirteen.

Okay, I just looked through a couple of boxes there and we're up to fifteen. So I put a different kind of mustard on each of four slices of the pizza I just made. A stoneground, a dijon, a plain yellow, and a hot Chinese style. That last one smells *so* good.

I'm going to start putting mustard on a bunch of different foods here I think, just to try them out.