Where’s Mrs. Garrett when you need her? We’ve been visited by a winter storm named Blair — traveling solo, nary a Natalie, Jo, or Tootie in sight — and are digging out from under a heckuva lot of snow and ice. I’ve been manning the blower and also spent cumulative hours clearing ice from our walkway with a chipper and shovel (because no one’s allowed to slip and fall on our property but me), which gave me plenty of time to reflect on what a poor fit this beautiful old house is for someone with YOPD.
Snow removal used to be so easy that I sometimes did it for ailing or elderly neighbors after clearing my own driveway. Tonight I’m bone-tired, hunched over and shuffling at a snail’s pace; the arm that slowed me down all day can barely move and neither can my face. “All this activity’s eating up your levodopa,” Crankenstein proposed.
She saw her patients via telehealth today to keep them off the roads and safely at home, and handled most of Muriel’s outings so I could remain focused on path-clearing. Every so often I came inside for a drink or to throw in another load of laundry, while she folded towels between appointments and even pulled a shift outside, clearing ice from part of the driveway.* ‘Niles,’ our scheming squatter, is quieter now that we made it through the worst of the ice without losing power, but dangerous temperatures await and more precipitation’s on the way.
If you’re wondering just how much concrete we have to contend with, here’s a partial (and redacted) view of our driveway, taken during a previous snow; there’s more of it behind me. There’s also a patio, a garden path, a staircase, and a front yard with steps and a stately walkway and uncovered porch. It’s too much for me to handle in weather like this. Even when Crankenstein pitches in, there are limits to her attention span and physical stamina; I typically do 90% to 100% of the snow-clearing.**
How many of our neighbors noticed my plodding progress from their windows — or from their driveways — and wondered if I was lazy or incompetent? For that matter, how many have seen me stumble or fall, or weave unsteadily as I return from a walk, and wondered if I was drunk? There’s a neighbor across the street with a prime view of much of my outdoor clumsiness. If he was friendlier and wasn’t always talking into a bluetooth headset, I would’ve eagerly waved to him by now and shouted “Hey, I love your new dog. By the way, I’m not day-drinking!”
When I’m not cleaning up after Blair tomorrow, I’ll try to write about the genetic testing I recently underwent for a Parkinson’s study. I leave you tonight with an old photo of a young Muriel’s blizzard reunion with Crankenstein; they were so excited to see each other they turned into blurs. Muriel is part American Eskimo (a type of Spitz that’s often confused with Samoyeds) and loves the snow. Unfortunately, she can’t run as wild in it now as she did prior to her spinal problems.
* One-on-one with Crankenstein, I can ask for help around the house until I’m blue in the face and it yields few results. If I lodge complaints here, she leaps into action. The uncharitable explanation is she’s more concerned with impressing strangers than her wife, but I don’t think that’s true — I think she’s wired in such a way that merely saying “Could you unload the dishwasher later and clean your pots and pans?” goes in one ear and out the other. But writing about how I feel when she waltzes away from mountainous messes connects, possibly because it allows her to reframe chores as something other than boring work she doesn’t value. Why she still needs these reminders when I’ve consistently said the same thing the whole time we’ve lived together is a separate mystery, one she might liken to my perpetual confusion about all things Tolkien, including adaptations she’s made me watch a half-dozen times.
** Hiring someone isn’t currently an option. The roads are treacherous and even the most enterprising group of neighborhood kids in search of pocket money would balk at our driveway. (Our neighborhood doesn’t have such kids, anyway; they skew much younger.) Neighbors who called landscaping companies were told they’re booking several days out. Since I have nothing better to do, I might as well do it myself, while I still can.