No good deed goes unpunished

I don't usually make a point of taking pictures of Victoria when it snows, because, unlike many of my fellow denizens believe, this city isn't magically transformed into a winter wonderland. It just turns into Ottawa.

The snow snuck up on us Sunday evening, when Demeter came over for dinner and to watch Masterpiece Theatre. I didn't even notice the snow outside until the Resident Fan Boy donned his boots, and I went to the window. Demeter refused our offers of boots or YakTrax, so we escorted her up the sidewalk, as the right rear wheel of her walker picked up broad white ribbons, then stalled with the resulting snowball.

I found that if I rhythmically swatted the wheel with Demeter's cane - rather like the old-fashioned bowling of the hoop - we made steady progress. Thank goodness the journey only took two blocks.

The RFB and I returned to the colourful glow of the Christmas lights against the snow, and pondered how both elder daughter and younger daughter, of the Hadean childhoods, reject January and February snow, only wishing for it at Christmas.

A snowfall in Victoria is a good time to visit the shops, nearly deserted by those lacking the inclination to brave the weather without winter gear or tires, for that matter.

At midday, as the flakes resumed, I resolved to seize our trusty ergonomic Ottawa shovel, and tackle the sidewalk running the length of our building, much as I cleared the sidewalk outside the Hades house in the vain hope of shaming my neighbours into making passage easier for strollers, wheelchairs, and canes.

It's about the same length of sidewalk as that I laboured on in Hades, so I cleared it again an hour or so later when the snow stopped. A Strata Council member thanked me profusely. Unlike Ottawa, where it's a municipal pastime to complain about the city's failure to bulldoze sidewalks, it's a municipal requirement in Victoria to clear paths and fronting pavements during the occasional instances when we get a brief blizzard. (It's never a real blizzard, but don't tell Victorians that.)

After two brisk shovelings, the body cries out for carbohydrates and salt, so the Resident Fan Boy fetched me potato chips.

It was the dip that did me in.

At 1:48, I awoke in agony, and chewing antacids and swallowing acetamenophen, lay awake until stupid o'clock, wondering if I were having a heart attack. (I've reached the age where this is a possibility.) I gave up, and, since upright seemed a marginally bearable position, plodded miserably to the cold living room to watch stuff I'd PVR'd and peer out between the blinds at the garden, which was steadily disappearing. As I dozed fitfully after 5 am, the RFB learned his office building, along with schools and several other businesses, had been locked. He ventured out at dawn to join the shamed shovellers. (I can dream, can't I?)