February 4, 2015

So much for the anticipation of Groundhog Day. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If we’re silly enough to put any hope on the prophesies of a prognosticating rodent, we deserve whatever disappointment we get.

Winter, in the form of fairly deep snow, has finally landed in my neck of the woods this past weekend. We were treated to a good snow storm on Sunday night. The windows in my bedroom are fairly low. Lying in bed, I can see out—the ground, the street light, and on this occasion, the blizzard-like storm as it was happening.

My beloved had already made the decision that he was going to give work a miss on Monday. Most times, even though where he works is only 35 miles away from where we live, there’s either usually more snow there than here, or vice versa. It’s rarely the same amount. Here, we’re about forty minutes from Lake Erie. There, he’s about forty minutes from Lake Ontario.

 To stay home was a wise decision, as it turns out. If he hadn’t done just that, he would have received a call on his cell phone when he was about half way there, telling him not to come in. There was enough of the white stuff on the ground, in fact, that for the first time in a long time, they closed the quarry gates and sent everyone home.

It was snowing again last night, but the forecast only called for a few centimeters, and that was all we got.

Winter is a real pain for me. First, it’s a pain because it’s cold, and the cold—in the form of drafts—is absolutely not good for my arthritis. I’ve learned to keep my ankles covered, either by my tall slippers, or by wearing socks with my short ones. Regardless, I also have to have a blanket on my legs. The funny (or maybe not) thing is that when my ankles are cold, they don’t feel cold. They just ache—like a really bad toothache.

 Second, winter is a pain because it’s difficult for me to get out at any given time. My steps and walkway have to be salted on a daily basis. There is also a little “dip” in the street right where I usually step off the curb to get to my car. The dip is new, caused a year ago when the crew finished repairing the street and deposited a bit of “left over” asphalt in a way that created a tiny little pond when it’s rainy and a miniature skating rink when it’s frozen.

At least now I have an ice claw on the bottom of my cane, and that helps a great deal. But still, moving about, running errands, and making it to appointments is a lot more difficult at this time of year.

And I do have a fair number of appointments lately as I await a date for gall bladder surgery. This latest challenge is something that needs to be done, and the sooner the better in my opinion. I know that this particular kind of surgery is not nearly as invasive as once it was, but I did have a triple heart by-pass twelve years ago, so that makes me a bit more of a risk than the average patient would be. To say the doctors are approaching this project with an abundance of caution would be about right.

However, with this latest small hurdle I have to clear, it has occurred to me that I finally understand the meaning of the phrase, “middle age”. It means that you’re in the middle of—almost constantly in the middle or in between—medical appointments and health alerts and challenges.

At least that is how it seems to me. But the good news is that I’m still on top of the grass.

 Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury