random thoughts – Day 1,791 – (Monday) – ice dance

Icicle drippage and driveway/back step danger have led to a new phase of the winter beach body home workout. The driveway and back steps were slick with ice last night when I got home and there were no overnight miracles to change that status this morning. The conditions required more ice melt scatter and focused attack with the shovel. The differences today compared to previous days were frequency and intensity.

Every couple hours there was a five to ten minute trip outside for a high energy assault on the ice. In the afternoon, the snow banks had softened just enough to chip away at them to load the shovel, walk to the end of the street, and toss chunks of snow onto the big snowbank created by the plows. The storm drain at the end of the street is full of snow. The assertive attacks to crack, loosen, and relocate the ice are being assigned names in my head.

There is the "controlled overhead swing" maneuver, where the shovel is carefully waved in the air in an attempt to knock down icicles from the gutter. The "downward chop chop" is a strike straight down onto the ice with the edge of the shovel. The "jabby spatula" involves short, quick pushes to get the shovel under the sheets of ice, and is usually followed by the "broom push" to shove the broken ice out of the path to the stairs. 

Glossy with ice.

The choreography involves variations of overhead swing, downward chop chop, jabby spatula, and broom push. The routine is mixed up a bit with chop chop into a snow bank, load the shovel, and walk to the snow pile with a chunk of snow. This might be my best choreography yet. Despite my best efforts, the whole thing is covered in shiny ice again tonight. 

To the casual observer, it might have looked less like a dance and more like a rage room event. There were definitely some flashes of umm, intensity. Every time the gutters dripped onto my head, each time I slipped on the glossy ice underfoot, every time I remembered the gutter screen salesman’s spiel about the how the screens should help prevent the gutters from filling and icicles from forming, a tiny spark of white hot rage glowed inside, because the gutter work seems to have intensified the problem. But the rage sparks helped keep me warm and the fresh air is invigorating, so there is that.

After a few minutes, the shovel with the increasingly raggedy edge worn from the abuse, would be set to rest in the corner of the landing. I would calmly return inside to the desk and resume the normal, non-facilities-maintenance work tasks that are heavy on keyboard tappity tap.