March 3rd 2002 Countdown to marginally greater freedom: 5 DAYS
I woke up this morning to inch thick ice coating over every surface outside, including my car. I slipped on my ass on the way over to discover that the car door was entombed in ice, so I had to trek precariously back across the ice rink that our lot had become and returned with a claw hammer. After chipping my door free and finally basking in the luxurious warmth of engine fumes, I found that I somehow misplaced my scraper (not that it would have done much good) so it took half an hour for the defroster to make the windshield translucent. I need to live in an apartment building with a garage.