Oh Snap!

I am sitting here at four-thirty in the morning with a cup of coffee. Zero-dark-thirty as we used to say in the Navy. I was deep in odd dreams, something about Yokohama, a dance troupe and training to be a Burning ninja, when something woke me up. I was pinned by warm fuzzy cats, as usual, and I got up to use the bathroom, as usual. When I crawled under the blankets again, I kept hearing noises. Sharp cracks and taps and snap crackle pops. Loud too!

The guy across the street came home from work, or the brother next door went to work, but that's not what I heard. A Crack! sounded above my head, I thought our outer storm window had broken. I pushed the curtains around and realized, no, the ice on the roof is talking. I've never heard it before. The slow language in which ice converses is harsh and startling; Crack! tap tap tap. Silence. Snap! Pop! Silence. Tap tap tick tick, pause, pause, Crack!

I laid in bed, listening to the ice, wondering if my windows are breaking, if the roof is going to come down on me. Visions of disaster and frantic media coverage. Of course mylarry is not home, and it is too early to call him in Nevada anyway. Not that he'd do anything but panic and give me improbable suggestions and wildly impossible instructions. So I got up, bundled up in my flannel gown and black velour robe, and my oh so political incorrect fleece and leather slippers, and stood on the front porch. The moon is out again, reflecting up from the snow, I can see perfectly well. That's when the ice in the rain gutter above my head started talking. Snap! Crack! Huh. Nothing to see here, move along. I moved, back into the warmth of the house.

I bumped up the heat and made coffee. I mean, I know perfectly well I can't sleep when the ice is chatting like that. I'm hungry, which is bad, today is a clear liquids only day. Tomorrow will be even more heaps of fun ... more about that later. Thank the moon and stars above that coffee is a "clear liquid." I'm going to drink pots full.