Schnowblogging

At VFTP, Tam tells her side of the Roseholme Duo's response to the Great Snowstorm of January, 2009. For my part, I'd gone to bed the night before exhausted, convinced the worst of it was over; the morning's 12" of pristine powder came as a jar.

--But let me backtrack: I had been feelin' variably lousy for well over a week -- thought I wasn't sleeping well, or enough, that sort of thing; thought I was fighting off a touch of the dire-whatevers that had been going around at the Skunk Works. Er, wrong. After some serious physical work last Friday, I felt worse and even slipped away from Sunday's BlogMeet early on account of it -- feverish, drifty, lunch not terribly well-moored. By Tuesday afternoon, I'd finally admitted to myself that a physician's attention was merited. I'd planned to drive up to doc-in-a-box that evening but road conditions were none-too-good and, Pollyanna me, I figured the main roads would be plowed by morning.

So here's the dawn and me greeting it, fever, bitta shaking, achy, sore back; and even a nice hot shower is little help, just makes me steam faster. Tam was out shovelling long before I got out the door; I followed her trail to the garage, saw she had my car unearthed, looked at the height of the drifts and the swell way they flowed so nicely into our alley, looked at my dear ol' Sears, Roebuck & Co. eee-lectric snowblower, steeled my resolve, and trundled the snowblower out to where Tam was laboring. Sent her after the extension cord ('cos she did 99.44% of the lawnmowing last summer and therefore knows where it is -- yes, our mower is electric, too, and we can mow at midnight or dawn without gettin' death threats) and dug out across the alley -- where I noticed our neighbor-plus-one had dug out her drive and the entire alley behind her house. The snow was nice and dry, not a lot of effort to push the snowblower through, "white death" flying away in a beautiful pure plume and I was already in that mental state where the effort could continue until I fell asleep standing up. Between the fever, exertion and cold air, I was about at operating temperature; lots of motion, not much "me" there. So I went ahead and connected our cleared space with hers, about ten minutes' work.

...That had the added benefit of clearing out the alley for our very pleasant next-door neighbor (see Tam's tale of sidewalk-shoveling).

Once that was done, I headed down the alley in the other direction, asking Tam to get the second, longer cord. It still didn't reach far enough to do the entire alley (which we knew, she'd been shoveling and shoveling and shoveling, which was all the more reason to send her looking for an extension cord...) but did about half of what was left. And how 'bout that, our neighbor lent a hand at the far end. Before too long, we'd cleared a path all the way to the street!

I'd had my car warming up and about the time the way was open, I loaded up my stuff (moment of panic for my house keys, found in my lap, moment of near-tears horror when I look off my hat and looked in the mirror at the perspiration-soaked, matted mess that had been neatly ironed bangs and more-or-less brushed hair) and set off. The alleyway, fine; the cross street, semi-fine (plowed, it was, but not to pavement), mushed around the next corner and darned-near got stuck; mushed on out to a major street and things were okay -- slick, 25 mph most of the way and my head spinnin', but okay. Got all the way to the side street leading to Insta-Physician and high-centered my car on the corner; rocked free, waddled the car up to the parking lot, got stuck again making that turn, got free, parked it, and took five minutes or so just getting set, brushing my hair and gulping a sports drink.

Doc confirmed my own guess, wrote a 'scrip and sent me on my way; the office staff suggested the biggo-mart next door to get it filled and I went there on autopilot, picked up some snacks, too, got stuck a few more times, came home, cooked, ate, took drugs, walked back to my room and pitched over onto the bed, out like a candle.

Slept for most of the next fifteen hours. Woke up and left the previous short post, went into to work, hurt like the dickens all day but felt a bit better over time -- and, here I am, posting. I need to go take another pill right now.

And they say there's no excitement in the Circle City!