Winter blues

“Let it snow!”

February 1, and it’s snowing – all day. Yesterday was a blessedly mild day, temperature sitting at about zero Celsius, and the roads were dry. I decided I’d better get out while the getting was good. Hadn’t driven the car for over 2 weeks. Thank God I had leased a new Beetle in the autumn. If the old car had been left sitting for over 2 weeks, she would have been dead in the parking lot. New car, aka Pearl 2, started instantly with no complaints. So I got myself to the supermarket and stocked up in preparation for the expected new blast of bad weather. Said weather arrived on time and the snow was well under way when I got up this a.m.

Our seniors’ residence is currently in ‘lockdown,’ which is just another way of management saying, “We’ve got a bug in this residence, and we are trying to control it.” Lockdown means that all activities which involve residents getting together (except for meals) have been cancelled. Lockdown also means no visitors, unless the front office makes an exception (and you’d better have a really good reason.)
Days are long and boring when it’s too cold and wet/snowy to go outside, and there are no activities going on inside. I’m guessing that the management has a good guess for when the bug will taper off, because they have called a general meeting of residents for Monday afternoon. We have no clue what they are going to announce. At least they are going to hold this meeting in the biggest main floor lounge. Last time they called a meeting like this (2 years ago), they held it in the basement Theatre Room, which only has one door. That was a horrible day: the speaker (the then Executive Director) had no microphone; therefore 90% of the attendees could not hear a word he said. Because everyone had to get down there by the elevators, that fact meant long waits to go up or down. But the worst was that the Theatre Room has only one door, and all the residents crowded in there with walkers and wheelchairs. (The Fire Marshal would have seen red!) Had anyone even whispered “fire!” there would have been a panic, and a disaster. At least this upcoming meeting will be held in the main floor lobby, which has numerous exits. I just hope there is a microphone.
….to be continued

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