Sunday, December 26, 2010

winter adventures

I wanted to update this sooner, but winter got the better of me and I hurt my shoulder, which meant it hurt to type. I am officially winterized now, though. I have driven through a blizzard and hurt myself.

The Monday before the blizzard, I was walking to class, had just come in with still wet and snowy boots, and somehow slipped as I was walking down the stairs. I instinctively grabbed the railing and caught myself, and was embarrassed and hopped up as quickly as I could, telling the people behind me that I was alright. We went to class, and by the end of class and lunch I was thinking perhaps I was not alright after all. I went to the nurse to get an ice pack, but by Thursday it was really killing me, so I gave in and went to the doctor, who told me I had torn muscles in my upper arm and shoulder and gave me a sling for 5 days. I balked a little, but had to admit the sling helped, so I knew I'd done a good job on myself.

The blizzard happened the day I was on call for CPE. I thought it rather special that of all the people born and raised in snow, I was the one who happened to be on call that day. It was indeed a blizzard, and the city of St. Paul even stopped bus service and snow plows by the afternoon it was so bad. Fortunately by that time I was at the University campus and was not leaving until the next morning. I left the seminary a little early that Saturday morning, made it out of my parking spot, and got stuck trying to get out onto the main street because I had to stop for traffic, but a couple of girls who live down the hall from me stopped and helped me. I made it without further mishap to the hospital, as the snow continued to fall. Around midday I had to go over to the other campus of the hospital to finish my day, and they had just plowed the street in front of the parking garage where my car was, so crossing the street saw me sink knee deep into the plowed snow, getting snow in my boot, even. I made it all the way to the other campus without getting stuck, but then almost got stuck getting into that parking garage, because they hadn't plowed that street in a while (which I thought was kind of ridiculous). I managed to rock my car out, though, and knew I wasn't getting back out in that. Fortunately by 8am Sunday morning, when my on call shift ended, the main streets were all plowed (as was the one in front of the parking garage), and though the lines on the street were not visible and the roads were bordered with car-high piles of snow, I made it all the way back to campus, where I was unable to get down the street to the one parking lot that they were just finishing plowing. I went around to the other parking lot, not knowing what else to do, and barely made it down that street (also not plowed), but got stuck as I was entering the other parking lot (which had not been plowed yet). The seminary president happened to be walking across then, and another guy was digging his own car out, so they helped me push my car more out of the way and I left a note on it for the guys plowing to call me when they had cleared out a place for me to put my car. They did, but they had plowed me in again, so I had to get more help getting my car out and around to a clear space. After that, I was good on driving for a couple of days, and much less fond of snow.

So now I'm officially northernized/winterized, and not really so sure how I feel about it. Coming home for Christmas where there is no snow has been quite nice, actually.