Home
December 23, 1997
|
x |
x |
n |
1 It's snowing. The wet kind. Everything is covered. It's supposed to change to rain. Actually it was supposed to have changed to rain a couple of hours ago. But it hasn't. I slept 'til 11:00. I remember waking up around 7 and listening to Morning Edition and then the next thing I knew it was 11:00. Wilbur didn't even get up. He burrowed into a stack of blankets and curled into the tightest little orange ball - I could hardly see his face. I rolled over and petted him for a long while and then decided since I'm the human I had to take the initiative to get up. I trudged downstairs and put food in his dish, which he stared at for awhile and then ate. I still haven't gotten dressed and it's noon already. It just seems so much cozier to be in pajamas when it's snowing. I can work on the scrapbook in pajamas. Heck, I can work on Zsolt & Istvan's web page in pajamas. I can wrap presents in pajamas. I can go to Starbucks in pajamas...wait, no, that won't work. The snow plow is out there now - I hope they don't expect me to move my car yet. I can't do that in pajamas. Uh, oh, I think my boots are in the car. Not a good place for them. I suppose I had better start acting like an adult here and put on clothes, go dig out the car, etc. This is definitely not changing to rain. The flakes are getting thicker and the wind is picking up a little. I'm dreaming of a white day before the day before Christmas... with each Christmas card I write... The forecast was for 1 to 3 inches changing to rain. Wrong. There's about a foot out there now and it is still snowing.
2 OK. I started to get cabin fever and/or a bit of workaholic frenzy about getting the Christmas shopping and album making (for La Madre) done. I decided I could wait no longer. I had to go out in the storm and get some copies made of some old instant Polaroid prints, and buy some groceries, and whatever. I took me nearly an hour to dig the car out. 18 inches of heavy wet snow is no picnic to "brush" off the windshield or the roof. Not to mention I was plowed in - the alleged snow removal people basically left a glacier of compacted snow at the end of the courtyard and some neighbors' kids had made it into a fort and a sledding hill simultaneously. They were sliding down the glacier on little plastic sleds right into the middle of the parking lot. I asked if they had considered building their fort someplace safer but they informed me this was the best place. When I finally dug what I thought was enough of a passageway for my car, they stopped sledding and waited for me to back out. There wasn't quite enough room and the parking lot was slick. I got stuck. The kids enjoyed the sound of spinning tires and burning rubber. The mother of one of them came out and removed their sleds from behind my car so I didn't have to worry about backing over them, and gave me a push as I rocked the car back and forth. After a couple more pushes, the car was freed and I sped slowly to Andover Photo. The roads in my condo complex were barely passable. The streets of Andover were one lane but clear down to the pavement. I found a place to park - miraculously - and did some of the photo copying right away on one of those "Image Magic" scanner/printer jobbies and left the rest for the pro's to do on the pictrostat. They promised I'd have them by noon tomorrow. The supermarket parking lot was much better than my condo parking lot. In fact I could see pavement. I loaded up on groceries - curiously, I experienced no compulsion to buy white bread and batteries. I think sometime last year, I mysteriously recovered from post-Blizzard of '78 Syndrome (that's what causes people in Massachusetts & RI to buy white bread and batteries). Anyway, I bought stuff to cook for dinner and basic groceries. I couldn't think of anymore errands to do, so I headed home. Bad move. The plow had been there again. Since my car was not there to indicate the presence of a parking space, the glacier now extended well beyond the where my space would have been. There was no way I could park there. Even with chains on my tires, I couldn't scale a 7 foot wall of compressed wet snow. I contemplated leaving my car dead center in the courtyard so nobody could get in or out. I entertained that thought for about 30 seconds and then took some deep breaths while realizing that taking out my anger on all the neighbors would just make them hate me and do nothing about finding me a place to park. decided to risk being towed for parking on the street - like I had a choice? The snow slowed down a little, so I tried to shovel the glacier but I was no match for it. I gave up. I still had some vague idea this was supposed to change to rain. It didn't.
| |
|
x |
x |
|
|