A Heartland Cold as Ice

This past weekend I ventured forth to the city of my birth to meet my sister and visit my dad, who is recovering from recent knee replacement surgery. It was not an auspicious beginning as I did not pay attention to my pre-printed boarding pass to notice that the flight left at 5:35am instead of 5:55am as originally scheduled - it was boarding by the time I got through security, and if you've ever flown Delta out of Boston, you know what a hike it is to the gates, and the moving walkways were not working!!! Huffing and puffing I got to the gate and scooted onto the plane as they pulled the tape across the door. I settled myself into my seat and... couldn't find my cell phone. I was convinced that it was somewhere on or about my person, and I wouldn't be able to turn it off, and the homeland security police would come to take me away. Aside from this panic, I hadn't had time to tranquilize myself for the flight. It was not a good time!

I arrived at CVG (which is really in Kentucky) without having located my cell phone, which led to another quandary - how would I connect with my sister who was supposed to pick me up at the airport? Although I hadn't really thought about it, public phones seem to have gradually disappeared from the landscape. So I trusted that Alex would make some assumptions, which she did, and we met up for the short drive up to Cincinnati. To my shock, there was snow on the ground and it was colder than Boston! As we drew nearer to Cincinnati, the snow grew deeper and a glittering coat of ice appeared on all the tree branches. Beautiful, but hard on the trees.

The cellphone turned out to have fallen out of my backpack in the car on the way to the airport, so all was well, although I felt extremely naked without it. That's somewhat amusing since I rarely use the cell phone unless travelling!

We met Dad and Barbara at Sugar 'n Spice, a favorite breakfast spot. It is unmistakable with its shocking pink coat of paint! It also has wonderful, light as air pancakes and goetta. Goetta is a concoction of pin oats and meat, a little reminiscent of scrapple but a little more toothsome. One Christmas Dad gave me a dozen frozen rolls of goetta - much appreciated by all!

We spent some time at the Belvedere, preparing a laptop for Dad and hanging out with the cats and my favorite globe. The trees and bushes were all adorned with snow and glitter.

Then Dad, Alex and I indulged ourselves in another Cincinnati specialty, Skyline Chili, for lunch. You haven't lived until you've had a regular 4-way with onions....

And of course, let us not forget, a signature lamppost