Parallelogram: A Matter of Conveyance

\One experience explored from two points-of-view\

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Lisa\Montreal

With winter well upon us, I am struggling to get from points A to B.  I now know where I’m going, I just don’t know how I’m getting there.

Snow means the toboggan:

“The winter will be long I hate to collar you.” (?)

This was such a success the first time I borrowed a friend’s, I went out and bought a double-seater.  If there’s any kind of ground-coverage this is how Farrah and I walk to school for pick-up and then she and Arlo get carted back home.  As you imagine, I am the dog in this scenario, pulling them both, complete with Arlo’s schoolbag on my back.  I don’t mind though.  It provides tremendous exercise and tons of fresh air.

When the sidewalks are clean we take the stroller but so far it is impossible to know if the sidewalks will be clean.  This happened on an initial attempt:

These are busy, populated, commercial streets and it was a mile-long ice slick.  All shops but no sand, no salt, no shovel.  Never did I expect city streets to be impassible by pedestrians so I panicked.  I could feel the winter walls closing in, all winter long all winter long long long.  I was so upset by the time I made it to school I became the ranting and raving THAT’S-NOT-HOW-THEY-DO-IT-WHERE-I-COME-FROM ugly ex-pat.  In response I was told sidewalks don’t get cleared until there’s something to clear, like several inches’ worth of snow.  Further, my landlord told me this was particular to my borough (the Plateau) whose leader cuts winter maintenance funds in order to afford summer fun – public wading pools, splash pads and the like.  All very hard to imagine when you’re brushing snow and wiping snot-tears from your five-year-old’s “I-keep-falling-down” face.

Downtrodden but not deterred, I packed away the stroller and strapped on my Yaktrax and brought out the Kelty:

This is great as Farrah is happy back there and it feels safe but one problem remains – they don’t make Yaktrax for children.  Arlo can’t walk with us thus negating the whole point of walking in the first place.

So one of those three options is how we roll but I’m never sure about which and when.  Tobogan, Stroller, Kelty.  It is a daunting amount of stuff to maintain when all I’m trying to do is walk back and forth to school.  I am determined however to stay out of the car.  I am determined to fill my lungs with crisp, clean (city) air and move my body.  I am determined to fill my children’s lungs with the same.  Their bodies already move plenty.

Winter.  You complicate me.

Bonus:  hauling groceries from the garage to the front door:

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Laura\Mayaguez

Laura?

Laura?

Hello?

*flip-flops*