If I Had a Day That I Could Give You, I'd Give to You a Day Just Like Today

Well, Kids. It's been another crazy Winter week in Iowa. Check out the size of that icicle in the above photo! That was caused by the almost 50 degree temps last weekend after snow and minus 40 degree temps just a couple of days before. Don't worry. We know we need to pressure wash the front of our house and we did just buy a pressure washer, it's been too damn cold to use it yet.

A woman I work with watches all of those cold case shows and says that the best way to get away with killing someone is to stab them with an icicle. You can just melt it and all the evidence disappears. Just in case you know someone who needs killin'...

The key words this week in Iowa have been freezing rain and ice. I was only able to run outside once this week. So, what did we do instead? Well, we got started talking about made for TV movies. If you've ever met me, you know how much I love made for TV movies. I love to make fun of them, but even though I'm making fun of them, I seriously love to watch them. When my friend A. and I were roommates and then later lived across the hall from each other in separate apartments, we watched many Sunday TV movies of the week together, We actually saw all three Long Island Lolita movies and then rated them. Of course, I thought the Drew Barrymore Amy Fisher was the best.

Anyway, the other day, John started talking about this made for TV movie he used to love when he was younger, because these are the kinds of fascinating conversations we have. (how jealous of our relationship are you now?) It was called "The Jericho Mile". It sounded familiar to me, but I don't think I ever saw it. Which is weird, because it's about a runner in prison. It starred Peter Strauss (who was almost in as many made for TV movies as Pamelyn Ferdin or Cliff De Young) and Brian Dennehy and it came out in 1979, so a lot of the inmates still spoke jive, which is one of my favorite dialects. So, John and I were able to find this beautiful film on Youtube and the best version of it had French subtitles. You can imagine how wonderful it was to see how the French translated jive. It was amazing. John kept apologizing for how cheesy it was, but I wouldn't listen to him. It was the perfect way to spend an icy evening in February in Iowa, and it would probably also be the perfect way to spend a balmy evening in May in Iowa too. It made me want to watch other memorable made for TV movies, like "Daughter of the Mind", just to hear Pamelyn Ferdin say, "Daddy, I hate being dead", "Sunshine", "Sunshine Christmas" and "Silent Victory: The Kitty O'Neil Story". It sounds like I know how I'm spending the rest of this Winter.

With the shape this Winter is taking, even Archie can get a little woebegone. One way for me to work through those darker feelings this week, was to plan our Summer vacation to Southern Utah. It's a trip I've wanted to take for many years. I reserved all of our airbnb's, cabins and glamping sites and I scheduled a tour of lower Antelope Canyon. If next week's weather is still bad, I'll start researching the best hikes, bike trails, and swimming holes. I feel better already.

I hope the weather wherever you are is better than ours and that you don't have such ready access to made for TV movies or gigantic, life ending, icicles as I do.