We've discovered something these last couple of days: Hoshi doesn't do snow. Or ice. She is firmly 'anti' both of these things and refuses to budge. Literally. You can try to argue with her. But you're just going to be spinning your wheels. Again . . . literally. The problem is mostly due to her tires. They're 'high performance,' and when you're talking about snow or ice, this means: really awesome at spinning wildly out of control.

We had a modest dumping of snow on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, which was kind of a fun event for Valentine's day. DC did a great job of plowing the snow to the side, leaving little embankments for cars to push their way out of. This wasn't so bad Wednesday morning, because the snow was still soft and we could easily kick and shovel a little path for the tires. But with ongoing temperatures in the teens overnight Wednesday, the snow quickly became rock hard ice. And I'm telling you, unless you have a blowtorch and a pick-ax handy, that shit doesn't budge. Unfortunately, CVS doesn't sell blowtorches, and the only shovels they sell are made of plastic, which are only handy if you happen to be shoveling cotton balls. Luckily, we prepared for Thursday morning by shoveling snow before things froze overnight. So we were good to go.

Thursday, I had a meeting in Baltimore, and that's where my judgement failed me. The thing is you look at a spot and your common sense says, I can make that. So you start pulling in and by the time you realize you grossly underestimated the condition of the spot (or rather, overestimated your car) it's too late. Yesterday I got stuck for about 30 minutes in a pretty benign looking spot on a Baltimore side-street. My new boots helped. (I bought them for the annual 'man trip' last year, but never got a chance to wear them as I had to cancel. And this year is out due to a trip to Japan. Next year, guys - you'll get to be in awe of my new boots.) Anyway, I was able to break up enough of the ice with the hard toe of my boots to get Hoshi some road to touch. But it was close. And just to let me know how pissed off she was for even putting her in that situation, Hoshi nearly ran out of gas as we sat there spinning. I guess that'll learn me.

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