10 March 2013

Snowbank ahead

Life has been...interesting.  "Miss Drive" has been putting in an appearance three or four times a week.  Most of the trips have been medical in nature: dad, mom, and cousin.  My only trip to the clinic has been local and fraught with peril.

February, Sis and I were heading up to the local parsonage where we were going to do some crocheting.  I grabbed the yarn bag that I received at an Elder conference I attended last year.  It's the perfect size to hold all the yarn I need to finish a project.  It's about 24" by 12" by 12" with straps that can be worn over the shoulder if one isn't wearing a couple coats, shirts and mittens.  In which case, the straps can only fit over the arm at the elbow.  Which, of course, puts said bag near ones knees if one is petite.  Headed out the door.

Sis lives just across the road, a distance of about 75 yards.  To get there from my front door should be relatively simple.  Go down the steps, cross the yard, stop, look both ways and cross the street.  Unless it is the middle of the coldest month of the year, just after a snowfall and the snowplow has done the usual job of covering over work which a nephew has just put into making a path to the mailbox.  To be fair about it, the driver just left a snowbank over the path near the point where I needed to stop, look both ways and cross.

Instead, I stop, consider the height of the bank, the width of the bank.  I look back to the house and consider whether I should go back and use the path to the driveway and go that way.  Hmmm.  In case you're wondering, the total distance added would be about 250 feet or thereabouts.  This is from the woman who never learned the proper way to estimate distance and was the despair of parents who tried to instill this time honored method a long line of ancestors used for decisions regarding the best way to travel.  So, hmm.

I stop, consider the bank again, turn, look at the other, safer path, consider the bank once again.  Why all the consideration?  Per my usual, my feet weren't encased in those boots considered essential during long, cold, winter months with inches of snow that add up to momentous decisions when considering various paths.  My son's vehicle, which he purchased just before the first snowfall expressly so we could have transportation during the winter, was parked due to needing a battery charge.  Not really feasible at 25 or so degrees below zero with even colder wind chills.  Hmm.

I examine the bank of snow closely, trying to estimate how much snow will get inside my shoes which I worked so hard to get a couple summers ago.  Hmm.  One step, two steps.  Still time to turn around.   I push off with my left, my right lands, sinks, snow up to my knees.  Foot lands right on the curb.  Too late to change my mind.  I try to throw aforementioned bag in front of me.  It hits the slick road and slides just before I land right were it should have been.

For all the time I spent in consideration, I could have walked back to the house, across to the driveway, and down to the street.  Thereby saving myself considerable pain, the search for anyone who could possibly have seen my latest folly and the necessity of explaining said injury to the folks at the clinic.

My arrival there a couple days later was, of course, by foot.  I made that journey so many times before without incident.  I thought I could make it if I took it easy.  There was no wind, the sun was warm, all paths were clear.  No longer able to shake off such injuries in the manner to which I had been accustomed, having survived 56 years of similar ones, I had need of a wheelchair to get around the clinic.  Had to call my other Sis to come get me.  When will I remember that I am now an Elder?