The Slice: Don’t get bermed by winter

My friend Lawrence Killingsworth has been known to use “berm” as a verb.

“Bermed,” he wrote. “Meaning to get caught on the wrong side of the berm, so you can’t make the turn you need to.”

•Feedback on the item about people who leave snow on the roof of their vehicles: I’ll summarize.

Some said they leave it there because it is too hard to reach or, in the case of K.C. Stacy, “Because I’m 84 years old.”

Some, including Lindsey Carpenter, resent being behind one of these vehicles at higher speeds. “All that snow blows off of their car onto mine.”

Some, including Jacqueline Volz, said leaving the snow up there is a hazard because it can slide onto the front windshield or rear window.

Some, including Byron Royse, rejected my theories and said that at some point you simply run out of places to put snow.

And Roxana Christman said snow atop the car acts as a handy, ongoing weather gauge.

•Guess Who: CBC radio north of the border has asked listeners to recommend songs by Canadian artists that should go on a compilation that will be presented to president-elect Obama. Certainly Neil Young’s “Long May You Run” has to make the cut.

We’ve been through some things together.

With trunks of memories still to come.

But what if you were charged with coming up with a similar collection, but the songs had to be by songwriters or groups from the Northwest?

•Thinking small amid the new frugality: Slice reader Liz Cox listed her 2008 accomplishments.

1. Picked a lock on an old desk I bought that didn’t come with the key.

2. Successfully machine-washed a rug that said “Dry clean only.”

3. Taught my dog to roll over.

Crazy, starry-eyed dreamer that she is, Cox is thinking she can top that in 2009.

•Hope and a prayer: “I hope this is the year that the forensic unit for the Spokane Police Department and Spokane County Sheriff’s Office does not have to respond to another homicide involving an infant that the creepy waste of airspace boyfriend has beaten or shaken to death,” wrote Carrie Johnson, forensic unit manager for the sheriff’s department.

•Local lingo: You know those squares of cardboard some motorists put in front of their radiators to keep their engines warm? Well, Kim Tracy refers to them as “Hillyard thermostats.”

•Today’s Slice question: So are homebuyers around here going to start thinking of sidewalks as a negative?