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Miss Johnson's Sense of Snow
An advertising campaign for boots, I think, some years back had the slogan "It's been snowing in Toronto for 50 million years. Get used to it." Why am I not used to it? Or rather, why am I so suddenly not used to it?
1) Broadband. Before broadband I never knew what the weather was going to be because natch I don't watch TV or listen to the radio. So I'd wake up and go Oh, snow. What I didn't do was go to bed thinking OMG 15 cm/ 6 inches of snow by tomorrow morning with high winds and heavy drifting OMG that'll be a pain to shovel, and then it's supposed to dump another 15 cm/ 6 inches tomorrow afternoon. No, forewarned is not always a good thing.
2) Orthotics. We all know the purpose of orthotics, right? They're designed to make standing and walking **hurt**. I got orthotics last year. So now when I walk across uneven bumpy snow and worse, uneven bumpy ice in my orthoticked boots, spasms go through my feet and every step is Little Mermaid torture (Anderson, not Disney version.) I took the orthotics out of my boots the other day and walked happily to work. Alas, one wears orthotics for a reason. Without them my flat feet spasmed and every step home was a Little Mermaid form of torture. Yeah, so add Structural Screw-ups Worsening With Age to that one.
3) Arthritis. Ah well. I won almost every genetic lottery in my family (skin, hair, metabolism, features) and the ones I lost everyone else lost too (eyes and teeth) so I mustn't complain at losing one big one all to myself. It's not rheumatoid arthritis which is what my aunt had, who was the only arthritiser in her generation. So I am content even with twinging knees. They still don't make it easier to balance on bumpy sidewalks.
And the snow this year has been heavy and persistent. Great dumps of it that turn into ice over time and make getting places difficult and dangerous. This is why I regularly go out and shovel whole street's lengths when it snows, as I did last Friday and this morning. Ah, and what did I find when I went to shovel this morning? Someone else had cleared the west side of the Baptist church and the crosswalk to the supermarket. Someone else had done both corners where the plows habitually throw up Alpine ranges of frozen snow for the poor aged pedestrians to negotiate somehow. (After the December dump- long after it- I saw a girl with a walker and her mother walking in the busy street because the sidewalk corners were impassable. A kind Samaritan on that side of the street stopped traffic so they could get across.) The perennial tits on a bull corner house on the s-e side of my street was actually out shovelling her walk. I am the little leaven that leaveneth the lump, she says smugly, and have managed to guilt a whole neighbourhood into proper civic behaviour. (Well, minus the South Americans, but the South Americans still don't understand how snow works. Throwing salt on it will not make it disappear. Throwing salt on it *will* turn it into ice that's nearly impossible to remove.)
So instead I shovelled the normally impeccable Koreans' apartment house round the corner and the Vietnamese's apartment on my street, because it's the day before New Year's and no one has gone in or out of either building since the snow started falling last night.
1) Broadband. Before broadband I never knew what the weather was going to be because natch I don't watch TV or listen to the radio. So I'd wake up and go Oh, snow. What I didn't do was go to bed thinking OMG 15 cm/ 6 inches of snow by tomorrow morning with high winds and heavy drifting OMG that'll be a pain to shovel, and then it's supposed to dump another 15 cm/ 6 inches tomorrow afternoon. No, forewarned is not always a good thing.
2) Orthotics. We all know the purpose of orthotics, right? They're designed to make standing and walking **hurt**. I got orthotics last year. So now when I walk across uneven bumpy snow and worse, uneven bumpy ice in my orthoticked boots, spasms go through my feet and every step is Little Mermaid torture (Anderson, not Disney version.) I took the orthotics out of my boots the other day and walked happily to work. Alas, one wears orthotics for a reason. Without them my flat feet spasmed and every step home was a Little Mermaid form of torture. Yeah, so add Structural Screw-ups Worsening With Age to that one.
3) Arthritis. Ah well. I won almost every genetic lottery in my family (skin, hair, metabolism, features) and the ones I lost everyone else lost too (eyes and teeth) so I mustn't complain at losing one big one all to myself. It's not rheumatoid arthritis which is what my aunt had, who was the only arthritiser in her generation. So I am content even with twinging knees. They still don't make it easier to balance on bumpy sidewalks.
And the snow this year has been heavy and persistent. Great dumps of it that turn into ice over time and make getting places difficult and dangerous. This is why I regularly go out and shovel whole street's lengths when it snows, as I did last Friday and this morning. Ah, and what did I find when I went to shovel this morning? Someone else had cleared the west side of the Baptist church and the crosswalk to the supermarket. Someone else had done both corners where the plows habitually throw up Alpine ranges of frozen snow for the poor aged pedestrians to negotiate somehow. (After the December dump- long after it- I saw a girl with a walker and her mother walking in the busy street because the sidewalk corners were impassable. A kind Samaritan on that side of the street stopped traffic so they could get across.) The perennial tits on a bull corner house on the s-e side of my street was actually out shovelling her walk. I am the little leaven that leaveneth the lump, she says smugly, and have managed to guilt a whole neighbourhood into proper civic behaviour. (Well, minus the South Americans, but the South Americans still don't understand how snow works. Throwing salt on it will not make it disappear. Throwing salt on it *will* turn it into ice that's nearly impossible to remove.)
So instead I shovelled the normally impeccable Koreans' apartment house round the corner and the Vietnamese's apartment on my street, because it's the day before New Year's and no one has gone in or out of either building since the snow started falling last night.
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Go you! on shoveling. Guilt is a wonderful thing.
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Shovelling is actually the best exercise there is for me. Whole-body, as someone else said. I stretch out before and after, sweat buckets during, and almost never experience any kind of stiffness next day. Walking OTOH... (In the 'kids, don't try this at home' department- of course at work I regularly heft 15 and 20 pound weights, so the lifting is less of a problem for me than for many.)
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OTOH getting up *off* the floor is a pain. I keep thinking how much less of a pain it'd be if I lost ten kilos or so, but my body doesn't want that to happen. Thus the snow-shovelling.
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It *is* a distance. Definitely car country. Or... since I'm on the subway, it might not be that far. Half an hour from the subway is standard for my arthritis woman, bar snowstorms. Maybe after the winter's over I'll try for an appointment.
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I hope you find a comfy and lasting pair of orthotic boots soon!
Alas, medical education and training in LRD is embarrassingly deficient in any area that doesn't require book larnin'/sharp objects/body fluids.
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Those corners... there's no doubt who's king in this town. Plow the streets for the cars as soon as the snow starts falling, block the intersections for the pedestrians and wait for God to clear the detritus. (grump)
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That right there is what makes it a dream job.