Walkin' on broken ass

I think there's only one thing more terrifying than freezing rain in Ottawa. That's rain that falls on packed snow and ice and freezes overnight. This means countless commuters, pedestrians, etc. setting off to their appointed destinations in street shoes. I've mentioned this before, but if you're on a hill in Ottawa in such conditions, it's a bit like that scene in Titanic as hapless inappropriately shod people hurtle past you to their doom.

This morning, mere seconds after his departure, the Resident Fan Boy stuck his head back inside to warn me about the sidewalks.
"Should I put on my Yaktrax?" I inquired.
"No, there's nothing for them to grip on..."

Well, that brightened up the morning's prospects. I set out for the speech therapist's with younger daughter and soon realized the full terror of our predicament. It was sheer ice, making the pavement look wet when it's in fact a slick death-trap. We penguin-walked down to the bus stop, as the rain intensified.

Outside an apartment block on Cobourg Street, I saw a women on all fours, trying to find a foothold on the slippery square. Our eyes met, and the bus whisked me around the corner, leaving her to her predicament. As I went over contingency plans in my head, I forgot to ask for a transfer for younger daughter, and saw I couldn't fight my way back to the front of the bus through the slouching students immersed in their separate I-pod worlds. Luckily, the Transitway bus driver, who kindly waited as I waddled rapidly up to her bus at the transfer point, told me I didn't have to show my pass as she'd just seen younger daughter and me emerge from the bus ahead. It was at this moment that I realized that younger daughter had left the house without her backpack containing homework and lunch. I decided we would not be busing back.

On the cab ride back home to retrieve the backpack en route to school, I noticed this month's bulletin outside Les Bergers de l’espoir, a homeless centre: "Blessed are the flexible; they shall not break."

It's an art walking home in the pouring rain as the gutters fill with cataracts of rushing muddy water. I've lived here long enough to know not to try to walk through puddles; the puddles mean that the ice on the bottom has blocked proper drainage. It's also a hard-learned skill to recognise the difference between water flows that are following ice flows, and water flows that have cut a path through the ice. You can safely walk on the latter.

I wonder how treacherous the walk back up the hill will be after three hours of rain.

While I'm ruminating, dreading, and gingerly picking out my footwear, here's one of my very favourite Annie Lennox songs. It always reminds me of elder daughter; the music video was a big hit when I first brought her home from the hospital. Keep an eye peeled for Hugh Laurie who wasn't nearly as famous then (although I knew who he was...).