Snow Day

At some point in my life the word snow has become a dirty word. I can't pinpoint when, but it has something to do with the last 4 weeks. A snow day used to be a day when the responsibilities that were scheduled for that day were cancelled with little or no repercussions - there would be a day off from school or classes or an excuse not to run an errand. And those days were, unfortunately, few and far between.

Now - that phrase means that I still have responsiblities to do and they will not be cancelled without repercussions - if cancelled at all. They will just be 100% harder to do! Take today for instance...

As a change of pace, I decided that 2 inches of snow was no longer enough to worry about shoveling so I managed to barrel my way out of the driveway which the lovely plow had added 6 inches to sometime that morning. I didn't want to be out, but someone at church needed medicine from the pharmacy and I like to help when I can. So - I made it out to the street, and slipped my way to the pharmacy. I won't discuss the fun of walking through a dirty, snowy parking lot, but eventually I made it back onto the roads and headed to their house.

Thankfully their driveway was plowed, but that didn't make much of a difference because after going over their bridge and around the bend, there is a 60 degree incline that I couldn't get a good run on this time and had to park 3/4 of the way up. Again, no problem, that's why I wear boots.

The problem came when it was time to leave... because I hadn't made it the whole way up, I therefore couldn't turn around and had to back down the entire driveway, around the bend, over the bridge (with no rails) and onto a major road. Well, as some of you know, despite being a pretty intelligent woman I CANNOT backup straight to save my life. That being said, it didn't take long for me to slowly drift from the center over to the edge and into a snow bank (number 1 for the day). Disgusted and freezing, I went back to the house, grabbed a shovel and cleared myself free. Amazingly with only a few stops and starts I made it safely out to the road. Then I promptly called Tom to announce that I no longer was allowed to go to that house by myself any longer. Sad really...

One would think that I would have learned my lesson with the snow and just stayed home... no way. Duty calls. Take #2 was later that afternoon as Tom and I headed to dinner at the home of a couple in our church that lives an hour away in PA. It had been snowing on and off here, but according to the radar (which lies repeatedly) we saw that the lake effect bands were dissipating just east of us and eventually we would drive out of them and be home free. Nope... amazingly the clear radar was producing more snow the farther east we went and halfway there (which took almost 50 minutes to accomplish) we gave up while trying to slip our way up the hill. We pulled into a lot to call and tellthem we couldn't make it. It was sad, but we felt much safer attempting the way home in the daylight. But, when we attempted to back up and pull away, we weren't moving. Another snowbank... but not my fault this time, there was ice under the snow and each time I touched the gas we slid sideways. Tom, dressed in a tie and dress shoes, flagged 2 guys down who pushed us out and we limped home. Our reward??? Dinner at Burger King!