And the first precipitation of the new year is...

Hail!

Yikes! In a similar vein, the first word I said out loud in the new year was a word I avoid printing on this blog. Well, that's to be expected when you're the first person up in the house and you go about doing things that might cause frustration. You have no one to talk to, what's going to cause you to vocalize?

UPDATE: That hail turned to rain, which became glassy ice on the streets. We ventured out at 4 pm, intending to drive out Mineral Point Road to Point Theater to see "The Aviator." The anti-lock brakes engaged as we skidded way too long to the stop at our corner, and we kept going after that for a mile, until we saw police cars blocking the road ahead and about ten cars skidded into the curb on Mineral Point just past the two graveyards. I started to make a turn to take an alternate route, and we too skidded into the curb, and, finally, I realized we needed to get back home. It took about half an hour to drive that mile home, and every approaching car, every parked car was intimidating, as I drove as slowly as a car can drive. It wasn't the most treacherous situation I've ever dealt with in my many decades of driving, because everyone else was aware of how bad it was and also drove as slowly as possible, but it was definitely in the top 5.