There are theories about chaos, official theories, well thought out theories, exploitable theories. But chaos as I know it on a first-name-basis, is not subject to any theory. Of course, I try, I really try, to fit it into some kind of a manageable box, where I can view it from the outside, comfortably. And sometimes I actually achieve containment, but only briefly, it is temporary.
Awareness brings more questions than it does answers.
I am reminded, constantly, that we humans are a mystery, as often to ourselves as to others.
The world was white when I got up this morning at 5:00 a.m. Winter has arrived here at Mist Cottage, our first snow. When Attila left for work, the tire tracks left in his wake were deep. The snow plow passed by at 7:45 a.m. I wish now I had asked Attila where the snow shovel was stored in the chaos of the garage, before he left for work this morning. I didn’t think of it! He would have grabbed it for me and set it where I could reach it.
Just after I wrote the above paragraph, about the snow, I heard loud noises outside the house. There was our neighbour with his snowblower, clearing out the end of our driveway, and a path almost to the door! This is the fellow that wanted people in the neighbourhood to show up at the town Council meetings to protest the rental unit development proposals, for a private road to go in at the end of our cramped dead-end street. We showed up at every pertinent meeting to show support, because we value the community spirit on this street. The community lost, the developer and mayor (stated conflict of interest) won, approval was given, environmental protections were altered with approved rezoning. I think the community spirit on our street might survive the new development, even though 80 additional vehicles squeezing up and down the narrow street will make it very congested.
After the driveway was cleared, I bundled up and went out to the garage to look for the snow shovel. There it was, on the other side of mountains of loose stuff that was stacked high. Determined, I waded through and over the pile, careful to find firm footing on the floor, which I could feel but could not see. I managed to grab a corner of the shovel, reaching to the point where I was almost lying down, and drag it across the mountain of stuff, then throw it over the mountain of stuff to where I could pick it up, from the path cleared to the door. Then it was time to extricate myself from the mountain of stuff, which was accomplished with huffing and puffing. The shovel was then used to clear the snow immediately in front of the door, and around the mailbox, so that the mailperson could get to it without any issues.
The roads were awful, icy, slushy, and slippery. The snow continued to fall. Tank lumbered slowly through all this, paying no attention at all to the impatient drivers behind her, who wanted to drive faster than the speed limit in these conditions. They have Tank to thank for their safe passage through town!
After arriving home from the Post Office, mission accomplished, Tank was parked at the end of the driveway, which had been cleared by the neighbour. The snow shovel was fetched from the garage and within a half an hour almost all of the rest of the snow was cleared, from around where Tank had been parked, and around Iris the trailer.
Not an altogether unpleasant experience getting my chore done this morning, thanks to our neighbour’s good will, and his snow blower.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
-7°C
Date: 7:00 AM EST Tuesday 12 December 2017
Condition: Light Snow
Pressure: 100.1 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: -7.1°C
Dew point: -8.9°C
Humidity: 87%
Wind:
NE 21 km/h
Wind Chill: -14
Visibility: 2 km
Quote
“You’re dealing with the demon of external validation. You can’t beat external validation. You want to know why? Because it feels sooo good.”
Northern Exposure, Gran Prix, 1994
You have a lovely neighbor!
We don’t have a garage. DH’s mini snow blower is stored in the outside shed and our snow shovels are on the lower level of the house, down half a flight of stairs.
Sounds like we were luckier than you, we finished with just over 2 inches of snow with almost none falling overnight or today. I rushed to finish my outside chores yesterday, as I had no interest trying to drive in the supposed 10-15 cms of snow that had been forecast for today.
Teri, this neighbour is a real treasure, he gets busy after the snow plow goes through and does quite a few driveways. The winter I was here alone he was a Godsend. That is why we went to those town council meetings, he organized the protest and spoke for everyone on the street, we wanted to support his efforts. He is a retired police officer, he must have been one terrific police officer!
We got about 7 cm of snow, which wasn’t too bad, but the roads were very bad. Very smart to get the running around done yesterday before this weather arrived!
The mental video I had of you “reaching” til you were almost laying down, had me in fits of laughter (no offense) but it reminded me so much of how I would have handled that whole thing with getting the snow shovel out. Only if we had a garage, I’d probably never go out into it these days… good for you! Maybe in the spring you should have a garage sale and make some money!
Bex, glad you found the vision of me amusing 🙂 I am pretty sure if anyone had been there with me we would have been laughing our heads off at the predicament. I am my own best source of comedy.
Our garage is a wreck, full of all kinds of things that won’t fit anywhere else. We still have lots of building materials that Attila collected when he worked with building materials, when we lived at the country house. We left a lot of building materials behind, there was just no time to move it, and no place to put it here at Mist Cottage. But the garage was filled with stuff when we moved here just over two years ago, and there it sits. I KNOW my tea plates are in there somewhere, in a forgotten box, under a pile of other things. When the new garage roof goes on next spring/summer, I’ll be purging big time. The garage roof leaks buckets and buckets, everything in there is covered with tarps and there are buckets everywhere to catch the drips.
We do need ot have a garage sale! The next time the community does one we will definitely be putting a lot of stuff out there.