Monday, December 22, 2008

Stockholm Syndrome

For the last week I've been held captive by foul winter weather.  My life has been turned upside down, and I've been more or less confined to my house.  Not even my whole house, just the upstairs where the gas fireplace is able to keep the temperature comfortable.  

As I've said before, I have a pretty crappy attitude when it comes to cold weather, and I don't drive on ice and snow.  And I've mentioned our pipes that seem to keep freezing like Otter Pops, but really, after a week, I'm beginning to think it isn't so bad.

On Saturday afternoon, in the midsts
of my "The damn pipes are frozen again" tantrum, I got something in my eye.  And it wasn't just the normal kind of annoyance of a painful eye, my eye swelled up.  The area around my eye and the eyeball itself.  (trust me, you don't want to see that, it was freakin' creepy!)  So after suffering for about an hour, I forced my family into the car, and Mr. Dog
 drove me to the ER.  It turns out it was an allergic reaction to whatever got in my eye, and it is, in the sense of things that you run to the ER for, not a big deal.  They prescribed some antibiotics and painkillers and sent me home (after about 2 hours of waiting).

When we went out to the car, the snow was coming down, so we headed right back home.  I didn't get the prescriptions filled because somehow I didn't think vicodin and eye ointment would 
help us much if we got stranded in the snow.  They'd numbed my eye with novacaine (something I do not recommend, sure it helps the pain, but you can't feel your eyelid.  It's creepy!) so I wasn't feeling the pain, and I didn't think my eye would rot off in 24 hours.

Yesterday after feeling my eye itch and ache all day, I decided I needed to get those filled.  I called our local to make sure they hadn't closed due to the weather.  The guy on the phone said "We're open!  Come on in!"  So we bundled up the kids and made the icy trek, hoping that the exertion would burn off some of the pent up energy the boys had been channeling into beating each other up.  Ok, it was more snow than ice, like 6 inches of snow.   And it was actually fun.  The boys had snowball fights, they made snow angels and Mr. Dog got to talk about how much he loves snow.  Because the ground was covered with so much snow, I wasn't slipping on the ice and I got into the fun of the moment.  Which is a good thing, since when we reached Walgreens, they were open, but the pharmacy was not.  Fine.  Nice going Mr. Walgreens phone answering guy, you might have filled me in on that tiny detail.

After our mission was cancelled, we decided to see if we could track down some food.  We ended up at the Naked City Taphouse, a new beer oriented restaurant in our neighborhood.  We ate, drank been and generally relaxed.  It was nice to be out of the house with the whole family.  And it was extra nice to find new place to go in the neighborhood.

The 5 minute walk home took almost an hour as the snow play continued.  And even though it was cold, I didn't mind a bit.  Maybe it was because I was with the kids and Mr. Dog, or maybe it was the residual effects of snow related captivity.  Either way, it was hard to stay grouch and maintain my anti-snow stance.  I may even me on my way to being a full supporter of the stuff.  Amazing what a little time in captivity can do.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was *thisclose* to putting the juveniles in a sled and walking the mile to the mini mart to get wine today. Yes, yes I was.

Jessica R. said...

Even thinking about your eye ball swelling is making my skin crawl. Seriously. And I hate those people who don't tell you key things like, say, when they close. ARG.
But snow? I love that. Though it's possibly because I live in CA and only see it when I'm on vacation!

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