[Nikolaj]

^
What about Southern California? Or even Northern California? I loved living in Los Angeles until I didn't love it after 13 years or so.
I'm just happy for the milder weather these past 2 days with light drizzle. Also very happy to finally figure out how to get my car out of my driveway yesterday. For 3 days, I wrongly thought the ice and snow was keeping my front left tire from being able to move, despite hours spent shoveling and using ice melting salt, 2 kinds, and cat litter.
That front tire was stuck down inside of a 3 inch hole! The landlord had chosen to place white stones up and down the 1oo foot driveway, kind of pretty, but he took the cheap way out. He at least could have had the potholes in the broken asphalt filled in. Turns out I had parked where the asphalt had a major crack/hole, and my front tire was lodged down there. A 14 year old girl in the neighborhood told me "Hey, Koly (I hate being called 'Koly')- just put a long board behind that tire, straighten the wheel out, put it in reverse, and the car will back right out."
I walked a few doors away to my parents garage, found a board from an old coffee table my father bashed apart to make a makeshift ramp years ago, and danged if it didn't work. That neighbor girl may call me 'Koly' for the rest of her life should she want to- how the hell did a 14 year old know what to do? Maybe she had seen the big holes before the driveway was covered with the decorative stones. I had no idea there were such large holes in the driveway, at all. Duh.
Anyway, the board worked like a charm.