“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 702 (Sunday) - thrills and zills

The snow and ice storm was on Friday, and the frozen mess was finally fully cleared from the car today. It required three thrilling excavation sessions. After Saturday’s unsuccessful efforts, there was 15 minutes of scraping and bashing snow on the roof this morning. The driver’s door was opened and I perched on the narrow ledge, clinging to the handle inside over the door opening with my left hand and hammering the ice on the roof with the scraper held in my right hand. This acrobatic feat was repeated from the back door, which was even trickier, due to the limited space. There seemed to be a legitimate risk of my foot slipping and me smashing my chin on the roof. Luckily, this did not happen.

After all the effort across two days, the only parts of the roof that were cleared of potential flying ice slabs were the painted parts above the windshield and over the rear cargo access. The two removable panels that make up most of the roof were not giving up the two-inch-thick concrete ice. The back roads route to dance class, with stretches at 25 miles per hour, felt like a very a good thing this morning.

Not so great zills.

Class was great and thank goodness that muscle memory is a real thing. Even still, it’s going to take some work to shake off the rust from both the dancing and the finger zills. Even when the zill skills are rust-free, I don’t especially love the sound of any of the four pairs that live in my dance bag. The pair I like the sound of best is large and heavy, and they flop around on my fingers. 

Unfortunately, it’s not like we belly dancers can just pop over to the local Zills are Us store and test out various finger cymbals materials, weights, and sizes. And there are lots. The Saroyen Cymbals website lists roughly 50 different pairs of zills, with sound samples. It’s overwhelming, and as a result, shopping has been started and stopped at least a half dozen times over the course of several years.

After class, it was a quick change from yoga pants and dance top into jeans and a sweater for the rest of the day. The car had been parked in the sun for an hour and a half, which made the next attempt at clearing the roof finally successful. It did, of course, require a repeat of the gymnastics feats and ice bashing, and the arms are feeling the effects of the dancing and the ice hammering.

Chicken, rice, and stuff.

There were trips to Big Lots and Market Basket, followed by quality time in the kitchen with a roasted chicken, rice, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, cream of mushroom soup, and grated cheddar. There was enough for supper, plus one portion packaged for a lunch this week, and a dish in the freezer for the future, which now seems like should have been split into three separate containers. Live and learn. It will be a long week of the mixture when it emerges from the freezer. Maybe by then I’ll have arranged for some new zills.