I hurt

I hurt today.

Really bad.

We went down to the big city of Portland Saturday, stayed overnight at Motel 1.4 or whatever, and then came back Sunday. Only Sunday it snowed.

In Portland, it was pretty. There was an inch or two of wet, fluffy flakes - just right for snowballs, but not enough for snowmen yet. The roads in town were a little greasy, but the highway was OK. We headed north toward home at just before noon, and the highway was clear-ish for quite a while. But after Brunswick, it got colder, and by the time we reached Augusta, it was starting to get a little hinky. Traffic seemed to want to go much faster than I was willing to drive, so we got off the highway and took the coastal route down Route 3. Bad idea. Apparently nobody wanted to pay plow truck drivers overtime rates on a Sunday for less than six inches of snow, so things were barely plowed at all. Greasy and slippery and we saw several places where cars had hit the guardrail or slid off into the ditch. We crept along, vowing every few miles to get studded snow tires as soon as we get a few hundred dollars together to do it. I was tense the whole way home. A drive that normally takes about 3 hours took four and a half. It was hellish.

I spent some time last night on that vibrating massage thing that fits in the armchair, and that was nice, but not nearly enough. Then this morning the power went off sometime between four and six a.m. I may have mentioned here before that I have a sleep apnea, if not: I have a sleep apnea. I wear a face mask attached to a hose that constantly pushes air into my lungs as I sleep. The machine is called a C-PAP and it is a lifesaver. I am useless if I do not wear it for a night, and if I go more than one nigh without it, I am punch-drunk and incapable of any productive effort. So anyway, when the power went out, my little "breathe machine" as I call it, crapped out, leaving me with a mask over my nose and mouth and no air coming in. Helluva way to wake up, let me assure you. So, I took it off and tried to go back to sleep, but that doesn't work much at all, and when the power came back on and I finally got out of bed, my back was so stiff and sore that I could hardly bend over. Lacing my boots actually brought tears to my eyes. It's bad.

I had to get up, though, because I have some really cool senior citizen folks who depend on me to shovel out their driveways and front walks, and I knew they'd be wanting to get out of the house today. Mind you, I can't bend over, so shovelling would have been comical had it not hurt so much. Luckily, most of it could be pushed and scraped clear and I didn't have to bend and lift.

So anyway, after that, I hit the grocery store and limped on home. I am still dressed in my work clothes (the boots are as far away now as they were this morning, and I'm not excited to try that again) but hope to find my pajamas soon. Maybe sweatpants. I might travel down into the next village to sozzle in my friends' spa for a little while. We'll see how it goes with the boots first. Maybe a hot shower will be enough to let me relax a little. The spa sounds great, but it's the coming and going in 6 degree (that's Farenheit, for my Canadian and foreign readers) temperatures with sub-zero wind chills (it's howlin' a gale out theyah) that causes me some concern. How relaxed am I going to be if I have to run that gauntlet before and after the sozzle? Meh.

I suppose someone will tell me to go to the doctor, and that sounds like a great idea, but I haven't got insurance, and I haven't got any money, so hot showers and gentle treatment are what I've got to work with. Maybe I'll get the cat to curl up with me on the couch. He's a good heating pad.