Out of the Polar Vortex; Into the ice

From Passive/Aggressive: Parking spots are rare downtown when it is trash day and noone lifts a shovel down there. Miracles of miracles, I found one the other day so I could go to the Y

Shanna's odometer the other day when the polar vortex had allegedly left

It has been above freezing for the past 24 hours yet the side roads are still covered with ice. The sewers are all clogged and there is nowhere for the melting snow to go. Ice is underneath the puddles making running treacherous. I think I prefer the dry cold.

It occurs to me that my blog is becoming a sad weather report. It has  too much influence on my life.
We had a visit from Naomi yesterday (no Maya though). Maybe I could pay her to leave her hair alone. It is fading though so more of her natural color is seeping in. Why would someone with beautiful red hair dye it dull brown?

I guess it is colder in our house than she is used to

I read up more about the Cartagena statue pictured the other day. Gabriel Garcia Marquez spent much of his life in Cartagena. His novel, Love in the Time of Cholera, took place there (That novel I liked: I could never get into One Hundred Years of Solitude) His father wanted him to be a lawyer. Facing this statue, he finally got the courage to tell his father that he would prefer to write. He was then told that he would eat paper.

As for the Noli Me Tangere statue itself, it was supposed to ward off pirates, their favorite spot to plunder as most of the gold passed through Cartagena's harbor. There also were a lot of 'foreign' invaders including the British, the French and the Americans).  Huge forts surround the harbor. (see below)I had seen a statue in Rome of the same name in one of the churches (St. Peters of the the Chains?). It depicted the biblical scene.