When it began to snow on Sunday afternoon, I was pretty stunned. I’d gone out to run a host of errands because the rumor (okay forecast but really? They’re so untrustworthy that it’s really a rumor) was that Monday’s weather would be oh-so-much suckier than Sunday’s. So I headed out to get a few basic things done because I could see that it wasn’t going to be the grooviest week.

I made it to the post office box and the ATM with only rain coming down. I spent some time at the drug store (the #1 reason for going out was to pick up the prescription on the muscle relaxant, one of the three kinds of meds I really truly need to cope (the anti-inflammatory and pain stuff being the other two) cruising around for cheap stuff I could buy with coupons (Ferraro Rocher candies, yum) and I headed out the door and oh my serious gods. There was snow. On the ground. Sticking. Clearly it had been coming down for some minutes – waiting, let’s guess until the exact second I went into the Walgreens. Oh boy. Oh boy oy boy.

Since the supermarket is on the way home, I dropped in there to buy the paper towels we seriously needed (on sale and with a coupon, this was important) and headed for home. I have, in over 10 years, been out TWICE in the snow with the scooter. It’s really okay, the thing drives pretty well, but damn, you get flat out COLD sitting in this thing puttering along at 4 or 5 miles an hour.

Made it home and got in the house and it HIT – I was REALLY cold and REALLY exhausted. Had no idea. Stu had also headed out – to the library – and within like 10 seconds of my arriving home, he arrived home. I was a bit of a wreck, just wrung out. And here’s where I found lesson #1 of Coping With Snow. Those slippers I bought a few months ago? The extravagant ones that I thought were really silly but I got anyway? The purple plush ones that had rice packets that slip into the bottoms that you heat up in the microwave? They might be the BEST thing I bought in the last oh, I dunno, five years? Two minutes in the microwave and two minutes with my feet in the slippers and I could function again; my feet were no longer so cold I wanted to cry. Poof. Warm. Oh gods what a wonder. Who knew that microwave ovens would end up serving a purpose even HIGHER and BETTER than making popcorn and reheating Chinese food?

We did manage to cook our quasi-pseudo Thanksgiving Sunday night (turkey breast instead of whole turkey, stuffing in casserole dish instead of in bird, you know…) and it was a challenge for me. The two of us managed, but I was staggering a bit – too much bending too much standing too much whatever. But yum, quite worth it.

It’s late Tuesday afternoon and I haven’t been out since. Stu went to work yesterday; it took him 2 hours and 45 minutes to et home last night. He went again today and they were early getting into work; apparently EVERYONE stayed home. For those of you laughing at weenie Seattle, we are not talking a couple of flakes. We’re talking a snowfall and temperatures similar to the thing we encountered when we first moved here in 1990; record cold, freezing and in some places a foot or more of snow. At the house? A few inches, but just after it melted off the sidewalk, more fell. Then it froze. Yesterday in the middle of the snowfall, we had hail; over where Stu works, they had hail three times. It’s not nice out.

And apparently snow and extreme cold are yet ANOTHER thing my body doesn’t like. I’m so $##$*(!%!! crippled it’s not remotely funny. Moving is not good. I’m out of some essentials and there’s no way to really deal with it – everyone is in the same bind, and apparently the hardest thing about getting to our house (as Craig learned this morning) is getting up the hill – and there’s pretty much no way around it, almost any way you come to our house, there’s a hill. And there’s ice. And snow and ice under the snow and probably snow under the ice for all I know.

I managed enough coffee for today but I’m now out. I took the last decongestant yesterday (what the hell was I DOING ALL THAT TIME in the damn Walgreens if not buying more decongestants? Well, er, I thought I had more. And godDAMN I hate buying the stuff. I mean it. I can buy several HUNDRED Vicodin at a time without anyone blinking an eye, but I cannot buy pseudephedrine without showing my ID. EVERY time I buy a box. Because I have allergies. I know it’s all about meth labs but sorry folks, on behalf of the 98% of people who buy “WalitinD” or “ClaritinD” because without it we have trouble breathing because we have allergies, the idea that you need to show ID because you’re buying f****g pseudephedrine is A HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS. Those who need it to make meth aren’t BUYING two boxes, they’re stealing it, shoplifting it and hijacking trucks for it. I just want to be able to buy 2 boxes when they are on sale. But never MIND that….

So I’m trying to get my mind to operate on a level above “slush” and get some things done today, things other than improving my score on “Puzzle Express”. This is unlikely since my Vicodin intake is a wee tad higher than normal. Still, I’m at least typing coherently, wondering if maybe tomorrow I’ll get out of the house. At 10 this morning it was 21 degrees outside (according to the little conversion bug I have on the computer, that’s 16 below in Celsius). And there’s lots of food, and there’s heat, and the microwave only needs two minutes to make my little slippered feet happy. But oh damn it’s being a hard day. For a slug. Even being sluggish would be an improvement right? I mean, what does happen to a slug when it freezes up?

And there, on my doorstep, is salvation. For along with heat-em-up slippers for making the blues go away, I’ve discovered that reading Christopher Moore makes almost everything much much better. You see, I went on his website the other day in search of info on the new book; I noticed links to a number of reviews but not to mine, so I wrote to provide them. And got back a thank you from CM as well as an inquiry – had I gotten an ARC of the new book yet? Why no, but could I oh please? And true to his work, Moore’s amazing publicist sent it out overnight and there, enshrined in an envelope on my front walk this morning was an ARC of YOU SUCK: A LOVE STORY. And I’m already on page 52 and I’ve laughed and sputtered so much already that it’s almost okay. The guy is so damn funny. He’s Terry Pratchett funny. He’s Jasper Fforde funny, funny in the little things, funny in the big. Just reading the phrase “Starbucks froth slave” makes me sputter big time. He’s just so goofy. I’m SO grateful.

And you folks on the east coast where it’s been 30 and 40 degrees warmer than it is here? Where it’s supposed to be in the 60s on Thursday? It’s 25 here right now, with a “feels like” of 15. Cherish what you got.

Oh yeah, and if you have any pseudephedrine, send it along huh? Can you still buy ClairitinD 24 hours over the counter in Canada? I know I’ve threatened for years to relocate to Canada which in many ways is saner than the US. Maybe Vancouver just in the time the Olympics or something, huh?

Meanwhile, I’ve got Mr. Moore’s book. And yes, I DO love that if someone asks “what are you reading, I get to say “YOU SUCK” .