February 26, 2025
The computer monitor that I’ve been using for the past
several years is the largest monitor I have ever owned. The bottom edge
measures about 26 inches across, and the side edge about 16 inches high.
Additionally, the monitor is slightly concave. I sit about a foot and a half
back from it, and it stands on my desk in front of my full-sized office window.
There are about three inches between the bottom edge of the monitor and my desk,
which allows me, when I bend over slightly, to see a tiny little sliver of
about two inches through that window to the outside world. Of course, there is
a lot of window above the monitor, but that just lets me see the sky and
a few of the branches of our walnut tree—through the necessary springtime sunscreen
of a bamboo curtain.
I tell you all this because yesterday for the first
time in about two and a half weeks enough snow had melted from the bottom of
the window that I could in fact see the roof of my car and the lower part of
the post that holds the “no parking” sign on the other side of our street.
And I am very hopeful that later today I will finally be
able to leave my house, go down the porch steps, to the walkway, then go from
the walkway down the sidewalk to the neighbor’s driveway so I can get onto the
street and walk to my car. Yes, I have been housebound since February 7th.
Although, to be honest, on the Monday of that week I couldn’t get out and about
either. Here is where I thank the driver of the snowplow on that day for
loading up our sidewalk. I really shouldn’t complain. They’re usually very
careful not to do that.
This is the first winter ever where I have been
restricted in my movements for more than a couple of days. Oh, there has been
the odd day when I haven’t wanted to venture out in recent years past due to the
wind, the cold or the precipitation. But this is the first time when I really
couldn’t. We ended up with a lot of ice on our steps, and then snow on top of the
ice, to the extent that the steps down from the porch were dicey to use the
entire time. And I will admit that since my daughter was very worried that I
would fall and hurt myself, I agreed to stay put.
I am sure that you can imagine that at this point, I’m
more than a little antsy to just get out.
Fortunately, during this weeks-long confinement, we’ve
not been without anything. Our daughter has still gone to work on all but that
first really bad snowfall day. And once out, she is able to stop to get
whatever we might be running low on, or just plain want, on her way home. I
usually try not to ask her to do this, because I am aware that she works hard
and by the end of her day she’s tired and just wants to get home. Under normal
circumstances, I go out during the day to whichever local store to get whatever
we want/need, so she doesn’t have to.
Of course, these last weeks have not been normal. And
I will confess that it may have been a tad passive aggressive on my part to
notify her of several more things we have been running out of over the last few
days. But honestly, when I can’t get out to get those few items myself, someone
else has to do it, and unfortunately for her, that’s her.
Yesterday, quite a bit of the snow that we received
during those two huge stormy days melted. Our daughter has done a good job of
driving back and forth over the patch of road at the curb where we park—running
the snow that had been left there down, as it were, for ease of movement.
We’re heading out, David and I, in a half hour or so.
We’ll go to one of our two grocery stores here in town—the one we used to use
all the time before the prices soared. We have a small list, because in winter,
we can’t use our grocery wagon, so what we buy we carry up the steps and into
the house. And since we’re going to be out anyway, we’ll make a stop on the way
home at his favorite eatery for lunch.
And be grateful to finally have a change of scenery.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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