I Know How Ray Liotta Felt

... in about the last third of "Goodfellas," when he's being chased by helicopters while trying to run errands. Happened to me today.

Overslept a bit. By the time I got up, John was ailing. Said he fell down the stairs, hurt his head and threw up. Asked him if it had anything to do with the school dance scheduled for tonight. He said no. Told him we were expecting 30 inches of snow today. He said he thought he'd feel better if he could lie down for a few hours. I let him stay home.

Got Will dressed for '60s Day -- a tie-dye shirt with a "Keep Austin Weird" logo, headband and sandals. He spent a little bit of time admiring the effect while saying "Peace, Love, Dope!" We missed the bus, of course, so I had to drive him to school.

Made it to the gym around 8:15a. Had ambitions of doing a long bike and long swim, but, eh, I was still a bit worried about John. Did 17.1 miles on the bike while reading "Guns, Germs and Steel" and catching up on old podcasts. Showered and ran home to check in on John.

Since my external hard drive had crashed yesterday, I had to drive 45 miles to the nearest Best Buy to get a new one. And be back, hopefully before the snow flew. (The fact that it was my 16th wedding anniversary had nothing to do with this.) So I got moving down the interstate.

Dropped off the hard drive for a tech to look at and used the opportunity to hit Trader Joe's, Whole Foods and Barnes & Noble. I would've hit up EMS, but just ran out of time. Anyway, got some whole grains, a couple of pounds of crawfish, buffalo stew meat, chili-lime peanuts and flowers at the groceries. Picked up three pretty good books -- one on raising chickens by Storey Publishing, a local house that's in a nearby town where I used to teach college; Total Immersion, to improve my swimming; and The $64 Tomato.

Traffic was horrible on the way back to the interstate. Some moron forgot that ice forms faster over bridges than elsewhere and had come close to going for an unscheduled swim. As bad as that was -- and it was a six-mile traffic jam -- the interstate was worse.

Imagine, if you will, taking 50,000 people from the New York metro area. Force them into a weeklong crack binge. Blind them. Remove their brain stems. Then put them in an SUV and point them in my general direction.

I made it back to town without severe injury to anything other than my blood pressure. Snow was coming down, about an inch every hour, and I still hadn't found anyone to pick up our route. Given that we have a 600-foot driveway, the issue deserved a bit of attention.

Stopped by one of the local groceries for staples -- Diet Coke, French fries, milk, cereal, etc. Ran by the dry cleaners to drop off some shirts. Scooted into the hardware store for lamp oil and extra wicks, for when the power went off. Also grabbed some finch food and a new shower head for John and Will's bathroom. Got more fish oil at the GNC. Made it back home in one piece.

Where, of course, I figured out I'd forgotten the toilet paper. Damn.

Got back in car, drove to closer local grocery. Darwin seemed to be at work -- the roads were more or less clear of idiots, if not of snow. We had about six inches by now. I don't have four wheel drive, and only have snow tires on two (front) wheels. A pin fell out of the driver's side windshield wiper on the way back, and the wiper impaled itself in a chunk of snow on the hood like a javelin. Still made it home without incident. New plow guy called and will take care of us.

Diet du jour:

Breakfast: Strawberry vanilla granola bar
Apple
Banana
Morning snack: Starbucks venti mocha (skim, no whipped cream)
1/2 c peanuts
Lunch: 8oz dried beef nuggets
1/2 c peanuts
Dinner: Red beans and rice

Crappy job with the veggies, I know.

Still, a better day than most this week, if for no other reason that I seem to have avoided a whole raft of potential calamities (can almost hear the irony gods sharpening thunderbolts in their shop now). Assuming plow guy makes it, I'll go for a long swim in the morning, and possibly a long-ish run.

But not a long drive.