Holiday Trilogy Part 3 Homecoming

Holiday Trilogy Part 3 Homecoming

So when I last left off, my family and I were pulling into our driveway after our 10 day cruise with the walker and cane crowd, and a delightful jaunt through the south.  Yeah!  We were home. The story should end here, but of course it doesn’t.

Since I had operated under the false illusion of balmy weather, I had not packed any winter, or even fall clothes. I was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. We are now in the driveway, but someone needs to open the front door, and the garage door, to get family and luggage inside. I volunteered to sprint to the front door, and get the ball rolling. Well after sitting in a car for the past 14 and half hours, I was a little stiff, and truth be told, I am not all that limber at the best of times. Our driveway was shoveled, but the front walkway was not.  In fact it was blocked by a packed mountain of snow about 5 feet high. No problem!  I rappelled over the obstacle and started making my way. Mind you the snow was over 30 inches high.

I had made it about 10 feet; when I fell down, face first into the frozen snow.  Just like that old commercial, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”  I probably should have borrowed a medic alert necklace from one of my shipmates, but hindsight is always 20/20. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t get myself to an upright position.  My arms (bare arms, I’d like to add) would just break through the top layer of the perma-frost. This went on for what seemed like hours.  My family, seated in the car, could not see me over mount snow, and began to wonder about the hold up.  One son finally emerged, and yelled over the mountain, “Mom?”  “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” I replied.  “Moms down, Moms down”, he yelled!  I felt like I was on one of those cop shows, but substituting Mom for Man. My husband quickly came flying over the mountain to my rescue.  He went down.  The other son, was frantically looking for the video camera, thank God he couldn’t find it.

 So both parents are now flailing in the snow. We have one son, half our size, trying his best to get us up. My Husband was able to get upright fairly quickly; I guess that gym is really paying off. I, on the other hand, was now trying to do the breast stroke to the door. I started to crawl the last 10 feet, and made it to the front steps.  Only then was I able to return to a standing position.

First stop, after shaking off 30 pounds of snow, was to run some warm water over my now, completely numb hands. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the sink filled to the brim with dirty dishes! A quick glance around my kitchen, revealed trash cans over flowing, food out on the table, but no sign of any inhabitants.   The other thing that was missing was our mail. Upstairs we were greeted by a few unmade beds (like the three bears story, it took awhile to find one that was just right!) Damp towels littered the bathrooms, and dirty clothes festooned the remaining floor space. Turns out junior came home the day after we left and conveniently departed the morning of our return. Couple this with the un-shoveled walkway and all we can guess was that his survival instincts must have kicked in.  We would surely have killed him, if he was there!

Next up on the agenda, was the opening of Christmas presents. The two young ones jumped right into the fray, ripping open gifts right and left.  As I’ve pointed out before, at this age the gifts are small, electronic, and come encased in that impenetrable “Clam” shell packaging. It fell to me, with my non-working paws, to spring the items from their plastic prisons.  No easy task with fingers suffering from post hypo-thermia. I was then asked to read the miniscule print on the directions, and put things together.

 It was now midnight, and my boys looked up and sweetly asked, “what’s’ for dinner?” Thank goodness for those chocolate tower gifts, and left over chips! Shortly after a nice filling meal of empty calories, we all headed off to bed. The Holidays were officially over.  Thank God!