Friday, January 12, 2007

Lucky

Occasionally something happens that makes you stop and realize how lucky you are to be alive, despite the everyday hassles, automated customer service, flaky friends, parking tickets, disappointing restaurants, or whatever your complaint of the day may be.

93 is a two-lane highway between Golden and Boulder that can be one of the most treacherous stretches you'll ever drive in bad weather. On your right as you head south to Golden are the foothills and about seven miles out of town the road winds downward and drops off. It's here that I've seen emergency vehicles slide off into the canyon as they arrive, lights blaring in the dark, to rescue cars that have spun out on ice.

I did the Golden-Boulder commute for three winters, in pre-cell phone days. Although I've always had four-wheel drive and knew well enough to leave my job early to get a head start on the bad roads, I still had two-hour drives home on a stretch that should have taken half an hour. Walking in the door, I'd be crying and shaking, thankful to be home, and wanting comfort from my then-boyfriend and champion bad-weather driver. I say all this because what happened yesterday was not in particularly bad weather. Cold, yes, but dry roads, at least as much as I could tell. But about an eighth of a mile south of Rocky Flats, the plutonium manufacturer long since closed down, on a totally flat part of the highway, I started to spin out at about 60 miles an hour. Black ice. I had no traction, just a feeling of being weightless in the car as it slid left and right. Talking to myself as I braked, but no memory of what I said. In front of me a pickup truck was sliding out too, over into the other lane. And in front of us a green Jeep Cherokee slid left, then right, zigzagged a few times across both lanes, and then flipped over and landed on its driver-side, facing me and the pickup that had come to a stop in front of me, the Cherokee's windshield facing us. As soon as my car came to a stop, I shakily dialed 911. A man got out of the pickup, cell phone to his ear. As he did, two women miraculously climbed out of the Cherokee. The state patrol arrived and flagged us on, as the women stood on the side of the road. We all had been tremendously lucky.

The rest of the way the road was perfectly dry, but I had to fight the urge to turn back. Although I felt like I needed a drink when I got to Golden to have lunch with my ex-boyfriend, the same one I lived with when I made that drive so many winters ago, we went to Wild Oats as planned and I cried as he held me.

Saturday, January 6, 2007

Cabin Fever


Weather update: I'm glad the snow has finally stopped, though my street is like the Rubicon Jeep trail. Mounds of icy peaks to navigate. Boulder is trying to make their budget by saving on plow blades (that's according to the Cavalry, a.k.a Dave). Olive the crazy Weimaraner is over visiting tonight--isn't she cute?

Friday, January 5, 2007

A Kinder, Gentler Storm. Not.


As I watched a Comcast truck being chained up and pulled out of the foot-deep snowdrifts on my street this morning (that's right, my street) I took a moment to think back fondly of the days of open-toed shoes in the middle of winter. Not here in the blizzardville of North Street, right up against the foothills of north Boulder. Those snowplows must be working overtime, though I didn't see any on my walk down to Vic's, my home away from home. But Broadway, the main drag through town, was clear.

Note to self: Stop obsessing about the weather. I know it's boring. It bores me to write about it. The funny thing about living in a place like Colorado, with such changeable weather, is that you become an expert. "If you don't like what it's doing outside, look again in a minute and it'll be different," is what the locals say. It reminds me of being the weather/police/fire reporter at the Union Democrat in Sonora, CA right out of J school. Every day at like 6 am (we were an afternoon paper) I put in calls to like ten folks out in all parts of the hinterlands of Tuolumne County to get the temps. And these old timers really cared about the weather, even if it was the same every day. I remember my editor greeting me some mornings with "We don't have much for the front page, so we'll need a big weather story." The first time this happened I went into the bathroom and had a nervous breakdown. "You've got to be joking," I said. "It's been seventy degrees every day for like the last two months. Nothing but sun." "Get on the horn and figure it out," he'd say. "I need it soon."

Wow. I'd forgotten about my days as a weather reporter. Anyway, I've had to resurrect my Sorrels, fleece, and pile on the layers like the days of old. Not exactly platform heels and short-sleeves that became my year-round wardrobe while living in the East Bay. Snowdrifts, buried car, and shapeless layers notwithstanding, it is absolutely wonderful to be back. Yesterday I went on a long hike much of the way up Mt. Sanitas with Gary, my crazy ultrarunning partner. It was one of those blue, blue, blue Colorado skies and chinook winds that blew in this storm, and it was all so familiar and comforting and glorious. Not to sound all John Denver about it, but just being back in the clean mountain air with one of my best buds was really exhilarating and makes all the moving hell worth it. Not that the journey was really bad. We actually had fun making our way back East to Colorado. Funny to think that we drove East to get to the mountains. I kept thinking I was going the wrong direction when I saw the 80 East signs. But I feel so much more grounded here already. In the Bay Area, I never knew what direction I was going because I didn't have the mountains to the west.

Some exciting non-weather related announcements: the very fabulous and talented Seattle-based writer Michelle Goodman just had a book published and everyone should run right out and buy a copy. It's called "The Anti 9-to-5 Guide: Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube." I'm living it in part as I write this and can't praise it enough. It will have you laughing out loud and taking away some incredibly smart and helpful nuggets for striking out on your own and following your bliss (while not becoming destitute). Right on, Michelle! And the book will be featured in next week's New York Magazine. In other publishing news, writer Diane Mapes (also from the cool writing mecca of Seattle) just started a regular column with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called "The Singles File." Cool. Check out her innaugural column, especially you gals who have a thing for fire guys. I realize I should not be so lame as to not link directly to sites, but am in process of figuring out HTML. Will be a glorious day when I do!

Random observation: Have seen more men wearing Carhartts here than I saw in two years living in the Bay Area. Boulder, you're my kind of town.