Tuesday, January 16, 2007

It's an ice holiday


Things are warming up a bit in Missouri, but the ice is treacherous. I could have stayed home yesterday but instead, no, I decided to go to my s/o's house and pick up something to cook at my house for dinner. Recall that I am from Arizona and the only ice I've ever driven on was in a highball glass.
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He has a steep driveway, I have four-wheel drive and more heart than brains, so I tried to go up his driveway, which is steep and sits on top of a hill at about a 45 degree angle. As I went up the driveway, the vehicle started slipping (hey, guess what? Ice has no respect for four-wheel drive!) and soon I was hanging over the 45-degree angle praying the truck wouldn't slip any further. I set the parking brake and thought, "Crap, now what do I do?"
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I tried once more to get the vehicle straightened out, but it slipped closer to rolling. I was afraid to get out because if the truck did go over, I could be crushed and my liver transplant team would be very unhappy with me. I called my s/o from the driver's seat and asked him if, perhaps, he could give me some suggestions about what to do. His advice was to get out of the truck.
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Now that was easier said than done, because to get out, I would either have to crawl over and open the passenger door and get out, hoping my moving wouldn't send the vehicle over. A man drove by and stopped, seeing the situation I was in. He tried to walk up the lower portion of the driveway but it was a solid sheet of ice. "Just grab your blanket and slide down!" he shouted. Did you know that long wool coats make perfect coasters? They're colorful, too.
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I had AAA on the phone by then and I did manage to get out. The tow truck arrived in a record of 15 minutes (I love small towns), the driver made it up the driveway after a few attempts, hooked my vehicle to a winch and with me once again safe behind the steering wheel he towed me out.
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Next, I came home and fell down in my driveway. My s/o came over later that night and he had just fallen, slid down his driveway and skidded out into the street. You know when someone tells you something that was obviously painful and embarrassing? Why do we laugh?
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So today we're two limping wrecks, but it could have been much, much worse. Thank God I didn't have twodogs in the vehicle because getting them out would have made things much harder. It's highly unusual these days that I don't have one or the other or both in the truck, so all in all, I'm grateful as heck.
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This morning it's warmed up a bit and I had an hour drive north for a job interview. Everything is frozen; the trees look like chandeliers. I took Oz with me and on the way home, we stopped so he could play. Both he and Romy are hilarious on the ice. He's much more graceful than she is; she is almost spastic.
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There's not much other news here in Mid-Mo. This weekend I'm heading in to St. Louis for an area assembly to attend some workshops, so it should be a fun day of fellowship. Until tomorrow, stay warm. And hey, don't try to drive on ice. See, I'm always learning something.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Girl, I could've given you some good tips if I had known you were venturing out. Gorwing up in ND (almost Canada) and then living in MN for many years, I know ice for sure!
By da way, Scout blew out her doggy-ACL by slipping on ice when she was a mere five years old. Not only did it cause her great pain and lifelong probs but it was $1K surgery back in 1996. You may want to keep an eye on ROmy and Oz while they are out. Just a thought.
Peace,
Scoutwh

matthew said...

Eek. Dear Twodogsblogging. I have an apology to make to you. I am new to this blogging business and I was trying to create a link from your blog page. Unfortunately I pressed the "flag blog" button and before I knew it, I was told that your blog had been flagged for posting objectionable content. Yikes - this is totally the opposite of the truth. Your sites contains fantastic content. I am very sorry. Please tell me if there is anything I need to do in order to set things straight with whoever this was flagged to. Very, very sorry.
Wow. Step 10 in action.
instinctively know how to deal with situations that used to baffle us!
thanks.

twodogsblogging said...

If you accidentally flag a blog as "objectionable content," you can go back to that blog and click "unflag" which will now show any time you revisit the site. This will unflag the blog and alert blogger.com that you flagged it in error (or you changed your mind). I shall try harder to be more objectionable.

twodogsblogging said...

Also, you need to make give others access to your profile, Matthew, if you want them to visit your blog. This is pretty simple. Go up to your post, click on your name, and it will give you the page that tells you how to do this!