WHEEE……

Because yesterday was Martin Luther King's birthday, a federal holiday, many people (like mail carriers, school children and teachers, and others) were already staying home. Here at Tangled Oaks I took Skittles and Patches for their morning BIG walk, and our neighbor's dog Lucy came bounding over to visit. Lucy is a yellow Lab who just LOVES to run around with my two small Shih Tzu's. In this case size SHOULD matter, but it doesn't. My little guys, with a ground clearance of about 4 inches, run right underneath Lucy. With her long legs, they have to work twice as hard to keep up with her. She makes a game of running first around the house, then around the orchard, then over toward the other neighbor's house. The three of them finally get tired and find a place to plop down in the snow.

While they romped, I stayed out with my snow shovel and kept clearing the path between the garage and the orchard. If it was cleared I could roll down it in my wheelchair and see down both ways in the driveway to keep an eye on the dogs, particularly at night with my flashlight. After about an hour, I decided to send Lucy home and go in myself. It had been getting cloudier and colder, and it felt good to go back inside. The rest of the day passed quietly until all of a sudden it was time to go out for the BIG night time walk. At first it just seemed like a quiet night that was totally dark. Then as I walked out I could see the beginnings of snow. It wasn't the fat, lacy flakes like those in the previous storms. This was just like the consistency of sand, but it kept coming. When we got in I told my husband about it with the comment that perhaps the weather people were RIGHT this time since it was indeed snowing, albeit very finally. Could this amount to the 3 to 6 inches that were predicted? What about the ice coating to follow?

This morning told us. There WERE at least 3 inches of snow UNDERNEATH A THICK COATING OF ICE! My husband had as usual been up very early. His report when I finally woke up around 7 was to "go back to sleep" because he wasn't going anywhere on the ice. He had Emailed his office and come back to bed. Somewhere around 9:30 we got up, him to let the dogs out and me to start some coffee. The bay window in the kitchen faced due east, and it was thickly coated in ice. More icy stuff was still falling outside. He opened the garage doors and let the dogs out briefly. He said he had to laugh as they tried to make their short little legs work on the ice. Their paws offered NO TRACTION, and they mainly slid across the ice. Flustered, they had done preliminary piddles and come back inside. Schools everywhere and many offices were closed. As I made our coffee, my husband admonished me NOT TO GO BEYOND THE GARAGE. But I needed more distance than that to be able to watch them, so I began shoveling out a path for my wheelchair. The stuff was heavy, so I basically just pushed it ahead and got an occasional scoop to pick up and toss ahead. Clearly this was going to be a BIG job.

I had watched as the dogs tried to navigate on the ice and it reminded me of my first time on the ice. It was in elementary school when a girl in my class had an ice skating birthday party. She always had parties somewhere outside of her home because she and her parents lived in an apartment over the car repair shop that her father operated. This time it was at an ice rink, and skates had been rented for everyone who didn't have them. Now I was no stranger to skating-roller skating that is. I had the type of skates that went on using clamps and a KEY to tighten them down on the places where the soles of my shoes protruded. I couldn't wear sneakers, because only the hated saddle shoes had the leather soles. My skating arenas were in two places: outside I had the remnants of the dairy farm where my father's family had lived years before. The remainder of the barn was basically a concrete surface divided into sections, and I had to be careful not to "catch" my skates on uneven surfaces. The inside area was the concrete basement of my house. This was smooth with the large columns at intervals that made great places to hang on if I needed them. With the exception of the sump hole, it was flat. My friends and I could roll around down there for hours.

Ice skating, however, was totally new. It had to be done on special skates that were attached to high shoes that were more like boots. They had to be laced up. There were narrow runners on the bottom called "blades" which were sharp. Standing in them was nearly impossible, so for most of that party I just crept around the perimeter of the rink hanging on to the sides for dear life. Letting go meant having to "skate" across the openings that allowed patrons go in and out of the bleachers sections. Falling down meant landing on my knees on the hard ice. And trying to scramble up was nearly impossible without something (or someone) to hold on to. At last by the end of the party I had sort of gotten the idea of ice skating to the point that I was willing to try it myself at home.