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Monday morning we awoke to at least six inches more snow than we had on Sunday. Our plan to leave Monday instead of trying to make it out of town over the weekend was a bust. Aurora was skeptical to say the least. toph was ambivalent. I walked down to the bottom of the driveway (after toph shoveled the stairs again) and said We’re going. And that’s that. We missed going to the cabin last year, and I wasn’t about to miss it again, blizzard or no.

We started shoveling. My mom called. Are we crazy? She asked.

No, I said, we’re going. I don’t care how much snow there is. Bandon or bust.

We kept shoveling. It took some time. Every time I looked at all the snow, I thought, man, how are we going to make it? But we kept shoveling.

Shoveling

Mom called again. I’m getting the van dug out, she said. It’s just taking a long time.

It’s taking us a long time too, I said. Don’t worry. We’ll make it.
We took turns shoveling and stamping down the snow to get through the intersection and head down the hill. We did a snow dance, chanting and stomping. We shoveled some more.

The intersection we had to get through.

As we got to a place that we thought would be sufficient to get the van out, a car came down the street, slowly, but not slipping or getting stuck. It turned at our intersection and headed down the hill, the way we wanted to go. We craned our necks to watch it, leaning on our shovels as the car made it to the bottom of the hill.

If they can do it, we can, I said.

Not with the kids in the car, said Aurora. I can’t do it. What if something happens?

They’ll walk, I said. No problem.

Aurora drove the van. toph and I pushed. We got her started, and she headed down the hill. We followed with the shovels and the kids, who were bundled up against the cold and ready for an adventure. They tramped down the hill, sinking past their knees and picking up chunks of ice and handsful of snow. Aurora made it all the way to the main road, and it only took 10 minutes of shoveling to get us through the snowbank. We lost a chain on the way out; we headed up the hill to turn around, and it was gone when we got back. We never found it.

Mom finished shoveling the van out as we drove to her house, and toph hiked in to help her get the chains on. Aurora and I got hot cocoa for the kids and slippers for us, because our feet were soaking wet and cold.

We left Portland almost 5 hours after we first headed out to look at the van that morning. It took us two white knuckled hours to get to Salem, 40 miles away, where we finally took the chains off. And then another three and a half to get to the cabin, but we made it.

When we got there, the sky was clear and full of stars. It was well over freezing, and the cabin was warm and waiting. Mom made up the beds for the kids, and Aurora and I made Mom’s bed while she wasn’t looking. And then we all had a glass of wine and, finally, relaxed.

Today was crazy. We decided that snow be damned, we would go out and do Christmas shopping. Accumulated snow is a rarity in the Pacific Northwest, and this morning, it was closer to 8 inches, with a layer of freezing rain iced on top. It took toph shoveling the stairs, which were a sheet of snow covered in ice, digging out the car, and then de-icing it after putting on chains, for us to make it out of the house. We left by 11 and went to pick up my mom. Most of the drive was uneventful except for the chains, which weren’t fitting correctly and were making a horrible whap whapping sound as we drove. We got to Mom’s, tramped about in the many inches of snow in her driveway, tightened up the chains with bungee cords (which greatly improved the whapping), and then headed out to the stores.

A few stores later, the car slowly filling up with presents, we tried to tighten up the chains again. This led to disaster — the twisted cable on the chains was frayed and sticking out in a tire-menacing fashion. Well, nothing for it but to buy new chains. But where, in a city where the population has been freaking out about the weather all week? We found some at a GI Joe’s in Sherwood (a suburb) and headed out to pick them up. Putting the chains on was not easy, as they were a different type from the last ones, but a very nice (and extremely butch, in the most awesome way possible) woman helped us out, and we were soon on our way again.

We took Mom home after stopping for coffee, and then Aurora and I headed to her house, where we tidied up, folded laundry, and packed stuff for her and the kids for our trip to Bandon. This took longer than we thought, of course, and it was late by the time we were headed home. No matter, we knew that food and wine awaited us, and after just one stop to de-ice the windshield, we were back in our neighborhood. More snow had fallen during the day, and the accumulation in some places was close to a foot. We took the “back way,” going up the hill and around before coming down to our house, a practice which has served us well all week in the snow. Until today.

We realized that the road we would usually take into our neighborhood had much more snow than yesterday, but we figured out a way to navigate it by going through a well-traveled parking lot, and we thought we were in the clear. Until we got to the next corner, about 4 blocks from my house. At that corner, a Subaru was stuck in the deep snow at the edge of the intersection. Four or so guys were digging it out while a girl drove back and forth trying to get out of the rut they were in. As we saw them, Aurora slowed down, and as we lost momentum, we got stuck. We tried the back and forth thing, and one of the guys shouted at us — you lost your chain!

Oh, you are fucking kidding me, I thought. It was the same side as the earlier broken chain. We both groaned at the prospect of busting another set of chains. But it wasn’t broken; it had just gotten popped off by the pressure of trying to get out of the snowbank. We tried to dig out the wheel so we could get the chains back on, but in the meantime, the Subaru was unstuck, and the guys all came over to help us. They pushed as Aurora drove, and once she got going, they shouted KEEP GOING!! She kept driving and headed down the street and around the corner. One guy looked at me and said you know your way home from here?

Yeah, I sighed, and picked up the chains. I started walking. It wasn’t far, but in so much snow it was quite the trudge, and the whole way I was just praying that Aurora was going to make it all the way to the house. I walked in her tire track all the way home. She met me on the last block.

I almost made it, she said. She did. She was so close to the curb in front of the house, and very nearly out of the intersection, but not quite. As we surveyed the car, our neighbor came by with his dog. I’ll get a shovel, he said. toph came down and helped dig, and then we pushed the van into a parking spot right in front of the house.

After that, I wanted nothing more than a glass of wine, and toph already had it poured for us when we got into the house. We lounged and caught our breath, and then ate some leftover Mexican food we’d brought home with us.

I am so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. It was a long day. And even though a bunch of things went wrong, Mom and Aurora and I still had a lot of fun being together and shopping, we were helped by many kind and wonderful strangers, and we got all the presents we needed for the kids, so it’s going to be a great, and very white, Christmas. Well, in Portland anyway. It’s 40 and calm at the beach, which is where we’re headed tomorrow.

If we can get the van out of its new resting place… but that will be a story for a new day.

I am on vacation as of 9 minutes ago. But I am still in the office trying to just finish up a few last little things. My boss called me earlier; I’d been checking so many things off my task list that he said I was on fire. I feel like I am on fire, like running around panicking while my clothes fall off? Yeah, like that.

I just want to be DONE for a few days. And as soon as I finish up these last couple of details, I am out the door. But not until Outlook unfreezes. Apparently in the time it takes to get its head out of its ass, I can write a short and pithy entry. Like I did just now.

Oh look! A star, gleaming in the darkness. Outlook is back. Which means I am out.