2001-04-12
Dear Diary:

����I think we can all agree that three things make life as we know it on this planet possible: air, water and peanut butter.

����This morning I used up the last of my peanut butter.

����I don't know how this happened. When you live in a place that's as hard to get to as our home you make sure you have LOTS of all the essentials--we usually have at least 4,832 rolls of toilet paper ahead PLUS an emergency backup vat of peanut butter sitting in the cupboard at all times.

����But I've been juggling a lot of stuff lately--work, gym, making maple syrup, Paul's retreat, getting organized to head out to the legal anti-FTAA protest in Quebec City on the 21st,, planning for our trip this fall to Oz--and somehow I forgot to replace the emergency backup vat of peanut butter.

����Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek. I was reduced to using the spatula to scrape out the last bit of peanuty goodness for this morning's toast.

����As soon as breakfast was over I rushed around preparing to head into the village to pick up the all important peanut butter as well as all the bits of foody goodness I will need as my contribution to Easter dinner down at my mom-in-law's. The second I was out the door and my foot hit the snow I knew I was in deep doo doo.

Cornsnow.  Know your enemy, I always say, eh.����Corn snow. Uh oh. For those of you who don't ski or aren't connoisseurs of the wonderful world of snow, corn snow is what happens when spring temperatures and rain collide with winter's snow. These conditions turn the snow into little icy granules about the size of a kernel of corn, hence the name.

����It's like walking or skidooing on little itsy bitsy marbles. Fine if you're on level terrain, but when you're going uphill it's a world of grief. Skidoos tend to dig in and get mired in this snow, just like a car would driving uphill on a road made of mud.

����Proving yet again that Cleopatra ain't the only Queen of Denial, I decided that I could handle this and merrily headed off into the village.

����Once you get out of our valley, the world is a different place. The snow is well on the way to disappearing in the village where I shop, and I saw patches of greening grass as well as robins. I tried not to be bitter. Really, I did.

����Groceries bought (including a case of beer and a case of Coke which I would come to deeply and bitterly regret about 45 minutes later) I headed back home.

����The main road where I park my car is bare of snow now, so I can't take the skidoo down to the car anymore. I hand carried all the groceries (11 bags, case of Coke, case of beer, 4 trips) uphill the equivalent of two city blocks to the sugar house where I had to leave the skidoo. By the third trip I was covered with sweat, and muttering deeply sarcastic things about my intelligence level in choosing to live in such an isolated place.

����Okay, wagon loaded with about 150 pounds of groceries, I start the skidoo. I have to make a turn just past the sugarhouse and skidoos are notoriously poor at turning. There is a slight bank in the turn, and that coupled with the drag of the heavy grocery wagon pulls the skidoo off the relatively firm skidoo path packed by a winter's travel into the loose corn snow that's about 2 feet deep all around it.

����Stuck and I'm almost a quarter mile downhill from home. Fine.

����I unhooked the grocery wagon, physically dragged the skidoo sideways as close to the path as I could and then walked beside it in corn snow up over my knees, gunning the engine, basically pushing it fifty feet until it climbed back on to the harder path. If you think I was covered in sweat before, honey, that was just a warm up.

����My muttering about my seriously damaged IQ and brain dead life choices rose to vocal levels that could probably be heard for a few blocks around.

����Then I looked behind me and realized that I had a wagon with 150 pounds of groceries which was 50 feet away from the skidoo that is meant to carry them up to the house. Fine.

����So I tugged it forward a few feet at a time until I got it to the skidoo and could reattach it. This little manoeuvre took at least 20 minutes. I was ready to cry at this point, tears were just millimeters below the surface.

����Ah, but the fun had just begun because I knew the next time I started the skidoo the only way I had a snowball's chance in hell of getting up to my house was if I gunned the machine and belted up the road as fast as it would go so momentum would power us up the steepest bits.

����My spousal unit enjoys driving like a bat out of hell over what amounts to itsy bitsy marbles. I hate it because I know if I can't stick on the skidoo path the machine will slide sideways and be dragged into the ditch beside our road. He has the physical strength to get it out of the ditch. I do not.

����Deep breath, and I was off. You know, if a ski on the grocery wagon hadn't broken, I think I would have made it. As it was, I got mired about the equivalent of six city blocks below my house.

����By the time it was all over, it took me exactly an hour of hard physical labour from the moment I parked my car in our garage to the moment I actually got all the groceries into the house. I am perfectly happy to pay to sweat for an hour at a gym. I was one ferociously cranky poopyhead by the time I hauled the final bag of groceries into the house.

����Even I can see the irony in that.

����And as I sit here sipping my tea, I'm thinking that it's a very good thing that the spousal unit chose last night to call to see how things were going out here in the boonies without him. We had one of those nice "I miss you" kind of conversations that reminds us both that sometimes we each tend to take the other for granted.

����If he had called half an hour ago, well, it would have been an entirely different conversation, sprinkled liberally with &%$#& type words.

����I'm telling you, the guy has impeccable timing, eh.

--Marn

Old Drivel - New Drivel


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Want to delve into my sordid past?
She's mellllllllllllllting - Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 - Back off, Buble - Monday, Dec. 19, 2011 - Dispersed - Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 - Nothing comes for free - Monday, Nov. 21, 2011 - None of her business - Friday, Nov. 04, 2011 -


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