I Almost Sweated Them Off, But I Got My Ashes!

I made it to St. Francis with time to spare.  I like the ferry!  But when I left Mass to go down the hill to my parent's house, there was an unpleasant surprise waiting for me.

Let's back up a tiny bit.  I have a friend who spent the storm this past weekend in the hospital.  He asked my Frankie to keep his house shoveled.  No problem!  Frankie was spending the weekend in the room I got for Tommy's trip.  The blizzard cancelled the trip, (I was sooooo bummed) but you can't cancel hotel rooms you "Name Your Own Price" for.

So Monday, Frank went back down to his place and we were all set, right?

Wrong, some plow guy dumped a huge, and really I mean HUGE amount of snow where he had shoveled.  It blocked the storm drain.  It covered the handicap ramp from the sidewalk to the street.  It made me MAD!

So, I got my Dad's shovel and ice pick and rock salt.  I went back up the hill, took off the jacket and got to work.  I flagged a DPW worker who happened to be driving by.  I rarely suffer alone.

So, now it's all set, but a couple of times, I almost wiped my ashes off as I was sweating!

But, then I got a nice surprise.  My Dad made baked, stuffed haddock for lunch and it was delicious.

Later in the Walmart parking lot, some guy stopped me.  "Everywhere I've been today, people have had that." and he gestured at my forehead.  So I explained about Ash Wednesday.  He was grateful for the answer, but not impressed.  Then I explained that this was the point of Mardi Gras.  People partying hard leading up to Ash Wednesday and the forty days of Lent.  "Ahhh!" he got it!