The feet of snow we got in VT was light and fluffy and beautiful. City snow is a different matter.
I'm back in Brookline now and the snow here is piled high high high since there's nowhere else to put it but up. It's also rock hard.
At our place we've hired a neighbor kid to shovel for us when we're not home. I think he's twelve years old and I'm pretty sure he gets help. I hope so - our driveway is huge. He did a really good job. The sidewalk and driveway are clear and he cleared a path around the side of the house that the driveway's not on. Nonetheless there was some fine tuning to do when I got in from VT - a bit of chipping to be able to both get the car into its parking spot and to open the door. I still had to climb over a few feet of ice that I couldn't remove to get at my stuff in the back of the car.
In addition, it's trash night. Our trash can is very full. While it has wheels, the shoveled path is too narrow for me to use them so I just dragged the thing sideways down to the sidewalk. Then I hauled the it two or three feet up and balanced it on top of the snow barrier that the plows left. I hope to GOD it doesn't fall over. I'd lay it on its side but then the lid won't stay on.
Today and yesterday have involved a large amount of snow-related exertion: digging, chipping, chopping, climbing, hauling, heaving. I'm really glad I'm fit and healthy and can do these things but the day will come when I'm not and I can't.
I hope I'll be rich when I retire and can hire somebody else to shovel the snow and take out the trash. Maybe I'll live in a ritzy apartment building. Or maybe global warming will take care of it one way or another. Cataclysm anyone? Just call me Miss Winter Sunshine!
In any case someone's going to have to do it for me someday since I can't imagine retiring anywhere that doesn't have cold weather sometimes.
No comments:
Post a Comment