Well, I’m certain I’m back in Michigan now.  Temperatures outside have gone from the balmy thirties to windy single digits that feel like subzero.  The wind started at midnight, waking both me and Katie.  She barked.  I groaned.  The power to our home went out at 1:00 a.m., causing flickering lights and clunking noises.  Katie barked.  I groaned.

Having to be at school by 9 this morning I got out of bed in the freezing cold, found a flashlight, checked the time (5:06 a.m.) and decided no school was worth going outside in the howling wind and went back to bed.  At 7:00 I woke and recognized that the house was colder and that there was heat in Ann Arbor.  So I struggled into my freezing jeans, ate some raisin bread, packed a suitcase in case I decided to stay in Ann Arbor overnight and headed out.

The windshield washer fluid wouldn’t flow out of the wipers, and soon I had trouble seeing, so I stopped along the way, grabbed the windshield washer bottle and began to douse the windshield.  All of the fluid immediately flew back into my face, the wind not allowing any to reach the windshield.  Sputtering I got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to Ann Arbor, squinting through the mire accumulating and obscuring my vision.

In class, listening to our guest lecturer all I could taste was windshield fluid.  It doesn’t taste good.  During a break I washed my face, but the taste, or memory of it, remains.  Now I’m at work, trying to be pleasant when I feel scruffy from lack of shower and sleep.  So far patrons don’t seem to notice.

Lesson learned:  I am glad I am not a pioneer without running water and electricity every day!