40 bar rises 29.60 3mph W dewpoint 30 Spring
Waxing Gibbous Moon of Winds
So, this guy goes out to get his newspaper and slips on the ice. If you read my obituary early, it may start with the line, Died for His Morning Paper. After some initial conflict in our relationship–I wanted to be in the city and Andover was stubborn about remaining in the exurbs–I have come to love our land. All of it. Except. The driveway.
It slopes. Most days in most years this is no big deal. I drive a car up it and down it. If it snows, I get out the snowblower and remove it. On occasion, usually in March or April, snow melt or rain freezes on the sidewalk and on the slope of the driveway creating a downright dangerous condition. Even more dangerous of course because I encounter it before I’m awake. Kate often gets the newspaper, but she seems to handle the slope better, or at least, doesn’t talk about her slips. (She’s a Norwegian. Stoic.)
Case in point. This morning. I put on my Acorn slippers with their padded plastic soles and went out the front door, down the front steps and onto my @##! Aside from my dignity, which I have little of in the morning anyhow, nothing serious damaged, but I did go back inside and announce that the paper would be retrieved when “conditions warranted.”
Since Kate was stuck reading Parenting magazine, one of the many free magazine subscriptions she gets just being an MD, I listened to the first few groans, smirks and cries of disbelief at the bad advice, about Parenting, of all things. This made me head for the downstairs and the plastic bucket in which I deposited my Yak-Traks last years.
Yak-Traks are a fraidy cats dream. They slip over your boot or tennis shoe and put coiled metal in contact with the ice rather than your slippery soul. They worked great. I spread salt on the bad places, got the Tribune, came inside and promptly, you guessed, had a near miss slipping on our tile floor. Turns out the Yak-Traks create instability on solid surfaces. Sigh.
