Cabin fever (obviously) setting in

Well good morning. Shall I recap my work week? Okay, I will.

- Monday morning, sideways sliding and jackassery abounding as I desperatly and quite unsuccessfully attempt to get out of my neighborhood and drive to work in Hillsboro. Call Nicky, she picks me up and drives me to work in Lincoln Tower in her 50-ton Ford Explorer. Cover Rita in Hillsboro from LT.

- Tuesday morning Nicky comes to get me again. Cover Rita in Hillsboro from LT.

- Wednesday morning, Nicky again. I am supposed to be working downtown at the KOIN, learning some new responsibilities, but one of the LT units needs me so I stay in LT.

- Thursday morning, it has warmed up some and the hill out of my neighborhood is manageable. I drive myself to the KOIN and cover Sheree all day.

- Friday morning, can't get out of my complex let alone attempt the hill. Harass my neighbor who also works for my company at the KOIN into driving me to work. He has a pickup and drives like a champ, although we did slide around like crazy through Hillsdale and at one point at the Starbucks I was sure the truck was just going to go sliding down the hill and into the Lexus parked a few spots down. He likes coffee. Thank God. The title department had a little holiday cheer meetup after work, so my neighbor could not take me home so my brother in law Jim came to get me. Streets in downtown Portland and all the way home at this point were fine. We stopped for a couple on the way home, and by the time we left it was snowing again.

So as you can see, I have been lucky enough to have people who can tolerate me enough to drive my happy ass all over hell and gone so I don't lose my job. Plus they have better cars than me. Or nerves. Maybe both. Probably both.

So this morning as I peer out my window, it is of course all snowy in the parking lot. The prediction is another flipping storm later today, into tomorrow and tomorrow night. I should go to the supermarket. I should be showered. But I don't want to. I am on edge just thinking about it. There's probably like 3 inches on the ground out there, and though right now it isn't snowing, this being Portland, I am imagining that that snow is covering ice. Fa la la la la.

Let me tell you a little story. A long time ago, in another life, I lived in sunny Southern California with a Yucateco who had never lived anywhere besides Santa Ana and Merida. But he loved his Cleveland Browns, and I was sick of it taking 45 minutes to drive a mile and a half and waiting for an hour in the express lane of the supermarket. So I devised a plan to convince him to move to Cleveland. And we did. In August. The first snow was scary. The second and third ones, too. But we learned right away that what cities that have constant snow in the winter do is prepare for it. Like salt the roads. And plow. Hey! Plow? Wow, what an idea... so like, you mean, move the snow off the road so you can get around? That's a GREAT idea!

Pretty soon, living in greater Cleveland as we did, snow was no big deal. You always counted on the roads to be taken care of. It was cold, and we bitched about it, but it was never a feeling of, "Oh good God will I make it to work today?" Never. Biggest worry was keeping track of your gloves.

I moved away from Cleveland, and came back here to Portland, and when it snowed the first time here, it was no big deal to me because I had been driving in snow for five winters. But our snow here is rare (or at least it was, jeez, sometimes I wake up thinking, when did I move to flipping Iowa?), and there is usually ice underneath it, and we're so environmentally conscious that we don't use salt for the roads, and we don't plow. So, you know, we're fucked.

I would just like to say one more thing, especially about road salt, which whenever I bring it up here people are like, no! It's bad! It's bad for the environment! It corrodes the undercarriage of your car!

Okay, a) isn't salt from the SEA? And didn't I just see you choose plastic over paper and then promptly throw those plastic bags in the trash can along with your cans and bottles? Who exactly are you trying to impress by suddenly becoming all environmentally conscious?

And b) Some car washes in Cleveland (and probably wherever there is lots of snowy weather) have this apparatus that actually rinses under the car as well. They do that so your car doesn't corrode from the salt on the road that you are driving on to get to work because you can because they take care of the snow so you can flipping get to work and not be all stressed out.

I think I will be trapped inside for a few days and the anticipation is clearly getting to me. It's lasted a week now, going on two, and we are just not used to this here. Well, I'm not, anyway.