snow dork.

Here's the thing about living in Maryland as a Southerner: you get all the rebellion & badass-ery associated with moving to the North without having to actually move to, and adjust to, the North. It's the best of both worlds: Northern enough to be different, Southern enough to still be familiar and comfortable.

However there is one key difference and it happens every winter.

It snows here.

Regularly.

Not much, usually just an inch or two at a time, but enough.

When I was in law school, I didn't own a car so I only dealt with a very small portion of snow-related issues. But now I'm back with a car.

And as it turns out, I'm comically bad at snow.

Seriously.

The first issue? Getting the snow & ice off the car. I'm convinced it's an art form that I've yet to master. One morning, while doing my makeup in my car (leaving it running unattended seems insanely stupid) & waiting for the windshield to defrosted, a neighbor strolled out of the building with a large tupperware container full of water in hand. He dumped it on the windshield, smiled at me, and drove away.  No waiting.

So the next day I tried it for myself. It failed miserably.

As it turns out, this particular trick only works with frost. When poured on snow and legitimate ice in below-freezing temperatures, the water simply turns to even more ice. Lesson learned.

And once the car is defrosted, you have to actually get it out of the parking space. Last Saturday we had 8 inches of snow fall. While Sunday was shockingly warm, the rest of the week it's barely crawled into the 20's meaning that the majority of the snow is still present.

On Sunday I had carefully cleared my parking space with the aid of the plastic dust pan that came with my broom, a tool that is only helpful with slushy snow. When I got home Sunday evening, the space had been taken and the only spots left were still snow-covered. So I parked on the clearest one I could find and proceeded to stress for two days straight about how on God's green earth I was going to get the car out of the spot on Wednesday morning to go to the office.

Tuesday afternoon, I bundled myself up in multiple layers and trundled out, trusty broom dust pan in hand. What I discovered was that my car was parked on ice masquerading at snow. My plastic tool was going to be useless. After a few futile kicks at the ice, I decided to try and back the car out of the space.

I got it, started the car, and backed smoothly out of the space as if half my tires had not been sitting on ice & snow. I moved the car over to the space I had originally cleared, since it was now free and drifted back into the apartment, completely baffled by the fact that I had made it out of the space. I had been under the impression that driving on any type of ice or snow led to instant fish tail-y death but apparently that isn't the case. Sure I knew that you could drive on ice & snow if you were already moving and maintained a slow, consistent speed. But attempting to drive while previously stopped? Only a wizard could do that!

I've decided to simply accept that I am, in fact, a wizard instead of attempting to puzzle out the truth of what happened in that parking spot.

But the thing I am the worst at in the entire world is walking on snow.

And today, I topped myself.

While in Virginia I had a conversation with my sister about the fact that I had been sick for over a month, first with the flu & then with a bad cold. Long story short, I had been eating really poorly and as a result, my body hadn't had the strength to fight off the diseases. Even though I knew that, there was something about hearing my sister tell me as much that finally made my brain say "Oh maybe we should change". So I embarked on a plan to create a healthier lifestyle. I've been eating much better lately.

Today I had earned a "treat" meal. After staying on plan all day Monday & Tuesday, I decided to treat myself to a burrito bowl from Chipotle for lunch. Chipotle is only a 15 minute walk away and since the weather was in the mid-30's, I decided to walk. I made it there fine, but getting back to the office nearly broke me.

To get to my office building, I had to cross a small median between my office building and the one next door. The alternative is an additional 5+ minute walk in what amounts to a giant circle. Since I had failed to wear flats, I wasn't really up for taking more steps than necessary. Instead, I decided to cut through the snow.

I got most of the way across without incident. But then I stopped to contemplate how to get over the mound of snow up to my knees standing between me and the neatly plowed parking lot.

And then, in my best  Looney Tunes impression, I fell. One minute I was standing, and the next I was essentially running in place while trying to remain upright. Eventually I lost the fight and landed on my hands and knees.  I made my way back to my feet.

And promptly did the exact same thing.

Twice.

Having now fallen down in the exact same manner three times in a row without successfully taking a single step I was starting to really get angry. So when I went down for the fourth time, I went in hail of curse words that would embarrass a sailor.

I stayed down there, on my hands and knees, before my brain went "oh wait, snow is cold. Like really, cold". Removing my bare hands from the snow seemed like the most important thing in the world, followed by getting out of the snow.  Eventually I made it out of the snow and into the parking space where I attempted to get all of the incriminating snow off of me. The last thing I wanted was my mid-Atlantic co-workers knowing about the entire incident. Thankfully, by the time I made it upstairs, the only evidence left were my lobster-red hands, which I hid by shoving in my coat pockets.

Thankfully, the only casualties were some bruises on my left knee and a small hole in my tights.

Oh and my pride. That was damaged too.

When I got home from work I went for a run outside. With temperatures predicted to stay below freezing for the foreseeable future, I wanted to take advantage of this rare day of sunshine and temperatures in the 30's.

I carefully avoided as much snow & ice as I could.

I think that's going to be my MO from now on.