This winter, I've been trying to shovel my driveway rather than use my snowblower. The snowblower is small, loud, doesn't turn off until it runs out of gas, doesn't do a great job anyway, and is buried further in my basement than I'd like to deal with today. It's been an easy winter for this experiment, and fortunately today was the first real snow since my cold started - the first day I felt up to dealing with it.
Anyway, shoveling has its own strange rhythms. I tend to start at the bottom of my driveway, where the plows pile heavy, wet, salted-and-sanded snow. It's a bit tricky to clear the whole path to the road when traffic is flying by, but today's traffic was inching along. I'd try to shovel while they were paused, then stop while the cars were moving. Someone rolled down their window and said "thanks," I'm guessing because I stepped back at the right time.
Another driver rolled down her window, and we had this exchange:
Her: I just have to tell you, I used to drive friends by this house and tell them it was the color I wanted. Then one day I came by and you'd scraped it all off.
Me: Sorry!
Her: It turned out great, though!
Me: Thanks!
Conversation between pedestrians and motorists is apparently possible when the cars are moving that slowly.
(You can see the old brown color on the house, a picture of it stripped, and the current colors.)
Posted by simon at March 2, 2006 4:47 PM in my house , weather