cobaltika

the christmas that almost wasn’t

i know i know. i’ve been very quiet. i’ve had to keep a low profile in the pre-xmas days. i was soooooooooooooo effing grumpy and i hate being all scroogy. then i had a bad cold the week of christmas. and i missed my family. EVERYONE. i had to stay home alone. and was too poor to send out wondrous gifts to my girlies. and i ALMOST missed my poet TOO. we had planned to spend at least christmas evening together and the weekend. it turned out he had to work on the day until 3pm, then his Sunday morning was stolen. then we had a BLIZZARD on christmas eve night.

yes, i *should* have traveled early in the day on christmas eve, so i would have missed it, but nooooooo. i still felt sick and grumpy and i wanted to cook something for dinner that required more than a hotplate and a microwave, so i stayed home. at least i did find a string of fairy lights and strung them around the “walls” of my nest room. that was cheering!

on christmas morning, i woke to find that yes indeed, the weathermen were correct for a change, and there was a great deal of snow. “white christmas” is so much more charming if one is not planning to travel that day. but i proceeded as if i were going somewhere and started cooking my christmas enchiladas. i heard the kids from downstairs open their garage and ran to the window to see if they were going to be able to get out. yikes! there was about a foot of snow in the driveway and the alley. their car is a heavier Toyota than mine and they had 3 people in it and they *still* had to push the car when it got stuck. shit! i called my poet and left a message that we might be disappointed today. i hoped more people would drive down the alley, so there would be a path, but nope. close to time to leave, i decided to go ahead and give it a try before packing the car.

i have been gloating over the joy of having a garage, but i guess it is not that awesome if you are stuck in it. not that being parked on the street would have been any easier on this day. surprisingly, little tinaMerlot leapt right through the deep snow in the driveway and into the alley. she stayed in the neighbor’s tracks nicely and we made it out … to find HEAPS of snow at the street. still she pushed through it. i saw that the big streets were mostly clear and felt confident that we could drive to Kansas City. however, miss tina had a problem getting back in the driveway. there is a slight incline and she was … stuck. but i felt sure she could at least roll backwards in her tracks, so went in to finish getting ready to go.

when i came out, she was completely stuck. and would not go forward or backward. there were just those sickening gritty sounds of a car stuck in the snow and ice. i couldn’t push her by myself. a neighbor came over and tried to give a push. no luck. he said it didn’t seem a good idea to get out on the road anyway and i knew my mother would say EXACTLY the same thing. i almost gave up. but decided to make a little more of that bad noise while trying to roll back and forth and all of a sudden tinaMerlot ESCAPED! we made it down the alley and out again and through the side streets without getting stuck again and then i could keep to the big roads. i was excited to see the barrier of snow as tall as my car in the middle of the street downtown. so thrilling! once on the highway, it was dry and i could drive 50! i was so glad i did not take any more cold drugs, because the snow snakes were hypnotic. 20 miles of them. i arrived at the poet’s workplace at exactly the right time and then we made it to his house safely. then it was christmas. yay.

yesterday, more snow, but nice snow. he took me to Utrecht so i might buy art supplies for my christmas gift! i did! we saw The Young Victoria, which was very pretty. and walked in the deep snow in the park, which was also. now he is gone to work and i *might* go out and make some pictures, but i am afraid of his door key getting stuck, which he warned me about, so i might just stay in.

it all turned out ok, but i am always happier when christmas is over.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 27th, 2009 at 8:49 am and is filed under random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.