Sam's Winter Olympics

Good morning! My oh my, it is a toasty -32 F in the Prairie of Stars. Husband got up for work, fed La Roux, and yelped from the garage this frigid number...merely to validate my plan to stay in bed as long as humanly possible...at least that's what I tell myself. In honor of this week, which has been bitey and cold, I thought a celebratory blog was in order! Therefore, I present, THE WINTER OLYMPICS. Four cold-weather "sports" I find such sport in, even though there are no actual sports involved. Pictures would have made this post, but alas, I'm stayin' in bed, remember?

CADIPULT

Cadipult involves our beautiful Cadillac CTS. For those who do not know Anna - she is a feisty rear-wheel drive sports car with a 6-spd manual. People often comment "Oh, that must be a bitch to drive in winter". On the contrary, I feel safer driving her than any vehicle I've owned. You develop an understanding for exactly how she will respond to your touch and your acceleration.

We also have quite the slope on our driveway. The first 2/3 of the drive is flat. However, that last section is all hill to get into the garage. The weather has left us with a layer of ice underneath a layer of hardpacked snow.

While planning the trajectory, an "athlete" must keep in mind two obstacles.

1) A vintage snowmobile that is kind of parked half-cocked near the wall

2) A giant, gaping hole that is going to have a drain cover someday but for now is just a broken ankle waiting to happen.

Cadipult involves the culmination of all the above concepts. It comes down to getting Anna from the base of the driveway into the garage without crashing.

The approach can go two ways. The first starts off with "Shit! The garage door took longer to open than I thought. Now I have stop at the base of the hill. Stopping means 1st gear. 1st gear means not enough power! 1st gear means her back end is going to slide to the right and straight into a fence post." DISQUALIFIED! This usually leads to backing all the way back down the drive and approaching the second way...

2nd gear! Where all the glory lies. If the garage door opened right when you touched the button, you have the luck of being able to stay in 2nd gear! It's like the magical gear for Cadipult. It gives enough power to limit wheel spin and get you right up in the garage! And should you have planned, you can keep Anna to the right of the snowmobile while covering the giant hole all in one shot!

Any winner at Cadipult gets a medal...because otherwise you get a dented back-end or broken axle.

WET CAT

Our kitten La Roux is an outdoor cat. And before I receive angry hate mail saying "How can you do that to a poor helpless animal"...he has a heated cat house that is probably warmer than ours. So suck it.

We also have a hot tub. And boy, that thing is a real treat when it's super cold outside. Usually this sport involves a couple Tallboys or a bottle of wine, but it has been played sober, too.

La Roux always senses when we're partying in the hot tub. He saunters up, "Meow?" he asks. "Meow?" Almost to say "What the hell, guys? Where's my PBR?" But then La Roux makes one fatal mistake. He climbs up the stairs to the hot tub and tries to join the party.

Wet Cat is just that - a sport that involves counting how many times La Roux gets wet trying to join in on the fun.

BOOTSTRAP JEFF

Hubs and I both have some nerve damage from previous frostbite. During a race last season when the starting line registered -7 F, we both thought "Ahh, that's nothin!" and raced anyways. I ended up losing complete feeling in my left big toe (my favorite toe :() and severe discoloration in the two little piggies next to it. Hubs received his from snow blowing without proper winter boots. His is actually quite worse than mine. There are black marks all over both of his feet.

Anyways, due to this, Jeff has some issues. His feet are constantly ice cold. He literally cannot get them warm anymore (unless in the hot tub, WET CAT!).

As a gift from his brother, hubs got a boot warmer. It's pretty neat - you just stick your boots on the feeties and in 10 minutes, they are toasty warm! It's the only thing besides me that makes him go "Aaaaaaaah!"

Bootstrap Jeff is a sport in which I count how many times Jeff does this in a day. Yesterday was a slow day for BJs...(Oh! Hahahahhaha!) with only a count of 3. The highest number so far? 16 times. 16 times in one day! I know it's not nice because this really blows for him, but at least he is using his gift all the time, right?

ARCTICRAP

Yup. Totally one of my favorite sports. It's winter in the midwest, and that means all the douchebags come out of the woodwork wearing their Arctic Cat jackets. Now, I'm not saying it's a bad thing to have one. It's a very good thing! Especially if you are on a snow mobile and need to stay warm. But wearing yours to Walmart? Wearing it to the bar when you drove your Silverado?

What's really funny is I googled "arctic cat jacket douche" and a picture of Lance Armstrong came up...haha! What the?!

ARCTICRAP allows me to count how many guys and gals commit this offense. I'm not picky, either. It doesn't have to be Arctic Cat. Yamaha, Skidoo, Polaris, etc. If you're going to wear it to McDonald's, I'm going to count it.

So there you go. My winter olympic games. I'm sure there are more that I enjoy...but those are the four I constantly keep track of. Hope you are all staying warm!! I am!