When I got up this morning, it was snowing quite hard, and it was cold–18 degrees. But there was only a couple of inches of snow on the ground, and I decided to try and make it to the transfer station. It’s only 2.3 miles from my house and there were sanders and plows out–I could see them going down the road.
The driving sucked, but I was trying to be careful. I didn’t realize that a band of very heavy snow (1 to 2 inches an hour) was just moving down from New Hampshire exactly as I left! But I got to the transfer station, deposited the trash and recyclables, and headed back the same way, instead of going around on Oak Hill and Park Street as I sometimes do if I’m going to the post office. I had abandoned all thoughts of additional errands and was just going straight home.
That was my second mistake (the first being to go at all, *sigh* It’s not like the transfer station is an emergency). As I came around the last curve where Blood Street dips down by the brook, I saw two absolute fuck-headed shit-brained assholes stopped in the road up ahead. Just stopped, facing opposite directions, drivers’ windows open, obviously having a little gabfest right in the middle of the fucking road! Blood Street curves and slopes right there, and there was a lot of snow on the road right at that point. I braked–not hard, and I wasn’t going fast–and my car fishtailed, turned 90 degrees and chunked into the snowbank on the right–nose pointing straight into Sucker Brook running under the road beneath me. The stupid fucks blocking the road both just drove off, ignoring me.
I tried backing up, but couldn’t extricate myself because the left front wheel had gone over the hard frozen remnant of old snow bank under the new snow and was caught on it. Of course, I hadn’t put one of my snow shovels into the back of the car before I left–it was such a short trip! (Yeah, I know, most accidents take place within five miles of home…*groan*). There wasn’t any damage, I hadn’t hit anything, in fact, technically I never even left my lane of the road. I’d just turned sideways and stopped at the snow bank. I’m lucky I didn’t wind up in the brook, which is good-sized although not big enough to be life-threatening. It’s down a steep six to eight foot bank, though.
Two guys, and a lady who was walking, stopped and helped me, the guys pushing and the lady sitting in the back for more traction. That was extremely kind of them, and we did finally get my car out. I guess it’s a sad comment on the times that all I did was worry that someone was going to get hurt and sue me. 🙁 But I’d do the same thing, if our positions were reversed! (I once ran out to get something at the convenience store and ended up helping a lady try to jumpstart her SUV! We were running back and forth with jumper cables and guys kept stopping to kibbitz. *wry grin*)
When I got free of the snow bank, I was pointing back the way I came, but I wasn’t going to try and turn around. Thanking the helpful people, I headed back north on Blood and went around on Oak Hill (even though there is a dicey spot there where it goes uphill and they’ve been doing road work) and Park Street.
I got home fuming: irritated at the fuckheads who blocked the road and caused me to skid, angry with myself for being unable to handle the car (I virtually never lose control of my car and I’ve driven in all kinds of horrific weather) and embarrassed that I’d needed help. Then Dad called! Long story short, he was getting his computer set back up and couldn’t get it to connect to the Internet. We went over various things, rebooted, checked connections and didn’t have any success. After multiple phone calls, Dad called his computer technician and got connected to the Internet, but they couldn’t get the router figured out. Now I felt incompetent and stupid because I couldn’t help Dad resolve his computer dilemma.
So, that’s 2008’s final farewell to me: a thorough ego-bashing. I gained half a pound, got stuck in the snow, and failed to help Dad with his computer. Bleh. Saturn turns retrograde today, although not in orb of aspect to anything in my natal chart. It’s a bitterly cold night, 8 degrees out now with a wind chill of -15 degrees. I’ve been huddled by the fire since sunset! I’m very glad I didn’t have any New Year’s Eve plans–mostly I’ve been relaxing. My next door neighbor who plows my driveway came by this afternoon after the snow stopped, and we only got about six inches of snow altogether–but I have zero motivation to go out and shovel. It can wait until tomorrow!
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