Lesson 4: When life throws you some snowballs...

A half hour before I left work, a coworker emailed all of us in the Agency saying that Jenny, another teammate and good friend of mine who had left a few minutes earlier, wanted to warn us of an extremely slippery parking lot. The flurry of snowflakes I had seen caressing the windows of the West staircase at lunchtime had apparently amounted to more, or it had melted and then frozen as the otherwise clear day was blanketed by dusk.

The walkway lights outside glimmered in the sidewalk reflection. I put my weight into each step, remembering the lesson learned in my first tai chi class two weeks ago. Put your foot in front of you, and gently, slowly pour your weight from one leg to the other, like tea into a cup. No problem.

As I moved farther out, I realized that roadway in the first parking lot had been sanded. One of the dump trucks must have come by earlier spreading gravel from its tail-end sander. I then walked on the paths of dirt, laughing to myself. I don't know why Jenny left when she did, but clearly, if she had waited another 20 or 30 minutes, there would have been no need to heed us warning. I imagined myself texting her with mock ridicule, followed by a colon and lowercase p.

Before I could do so, my foot slid sideways. I was past the first parking lot, heading into the second. The muscles in the left of my back tightened in a sharp clench upward from my lower ribcage. I gained solid footing and took a breath. OK.

I noticed that this section of the lot had not been sanded. I walk slowly, more carefully this time. I was aware, then, that sometimes I walk briskly. But now, I was chugging along, taking another step, pouring another cup of tea. I looked across the crisp, dark, clear air at other people readying to leave.

I remote-started the car, wiped away the fluffy snow off the rear window, and scraped away a thin layer of ice on the windshield. A dump truck crawled by, its sander spewing gravel on the ground. As I got in the car and put the scraper in the back seat, I felt my phone vibrate in my coat pocket. I put on the windshield wipers to clear away the remnants of ice, pulled out the phone and saw a mobile message from my sister. We had talked the other day, on her birthday, about her yearning to sketch drawings like she used to do years ago. I had taken it upon myself to assign her to sketch a nose, one of the more difficult body parts for her to sketch. So I was delighted to get a snapshot of a sketch of a couple of noses. "Who KNOWS what you might come up with," I had joked to her the other day with encouragement. HAR HAR!

I then realized, in the dark of night, that it had become darker than it was a few minutes ago. I looked up and saw an obstructed view before me. I turned on the headlights. With the hedge now illuminated, I saw thick clumps of snow piling up on the windshield. I glanced out the driver's side window. I saw no ground, but snow, already a thick layer, and with the help of another car's headlights, I saw a great gust of wind bring down a billow of more snow.

"Holy shit," I said aloud. "It's a fucking blizzard!"

I had been in the car barely three or four minutes, I figured, looking at two noses, one a fairly normal yet somewhat gnarly nose, and the other a crooked one not unlike one belonging to a good friend of mine. Who KNOWS? Who knew a squall would burst through? Certainly not I, who doesn't check the weather online or have watched the local TV news — or TV at all — in the last two years.

As I backed out of my parking space, my mind darted back to two New Year's Eves ago, when my last car was totaled in an accident during a snowstorm. I hoped for the best, and crept along, arriving home just under an hour later. Safe and sound.

Some days nothing interesting happens, and some days the universe throws a snowball at you. Maybe it's just to keep things interesting, to knock the monotony off course, off-balance.

I heard later that my girlfriend had caught the last few seconds of the sunset today, harkening an orange glow over a beautiful blanket of snow, undisturbed, along the trees. I missed that scene by about an hour, but I caught a glimpse of something just as special. So, I cursed my way through it, caught by surprise. But the swears were followed by giddy amazement, a wide-eyed wonder at how impermanent life can be. One moment you're just walking along. Then you're suddenly pre-occupied by exquisitely drawn noses. Next, a freakin' snowstorm rolls through and it makes you think, "I totally did not see that coming."

Mind your head. The next curveball is coming your way.

2008 crashes to a halt

I worked 2.5 hours at Staples on Dec. 31, 2008. A snowstorm came in fast, and we were all told to go home, and I left around 11:30am. The roads were bad. Mass Pike wasn't as bad as that awful 3-hour-or-more commute we all endured a year before, but conditions grew worse the closer I got toward home. I successfully navigated an unusually sparse Newton Circle, which is typically usually insanely packed with cars in a chaotic mess of cars.

I passed the two traffic lights and was on Centre Street in Newton. Ahead of me I saw a car getting ready to come out of the Brigham and Women’s center parking lot. The car’s nose was partly in my lane of traffic. From that position, I determined that I had enough room and could safely pass through as normal.


The other car was coming out of this parking lot. I was driving in the same direction as the white car, shown above.
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I could see the driver waiting for other cars to pass by; it appeared he was waiting to take a left turn, to go in my opposite direction, or go into the Bertucci’s pizzeria parking lot across the street. He was looking at other cars, away from my direction, and I assumed he would turn to look to the left to see if other cars would come. As soon as other cars cleared his way, he drove into the street. He did not look my way.

I was too close to make a sudden stop. I beeped the horn (he was this way now), and I put on the brakes. Because the roads were snowy, my car swerved as I tried to bypass the other car. The back end of my car swerved to the right. The front right-side bumper of my car hit the front left side of his car.

My car ended up perpendicular to the road, on the other side, where there are two lanes. My car was blocking those lanes. I got out of the car and saw the other car involved pull into the Bertucci’s parking lot opening. I motioned to him as if to say, "What were you thinking?" I heard another driver, who was not involved but trying to be helpful, yell out to me that it was OK for me to drive into the parking lot, so I got back in the car and did so.

I got out, and so did the other driver. A girl, whom he later identified as his daughter, remained in his passenger seat. I was about to ask if everyone was OK, but he was clearly angry and was blaming me. That surprised me, and I said, "You didn’t look!" That made him angrier, and he demanded to get my information. I said I wanted to see his, and continued to blame me, ending with "Suck my dick!" He grew more frustrated and said, "I should call the cops. Actually, I WILL call the cops." He went back inside his car. Either during the conversation, or shortly after, a woman came and became his witness. "I saw you hit him," she said to me.

I called 911 and decided to stay outside. The snow was falling hard. I was doing OK. I should have been just as angry as he was, glaring at him as he was glaring at me from inside his heated Mercedes, but I was calm and collected. I was enjoying the snowfall. I slightly smiled as I looked up into the gray sky where hundreds of big flakes were hurtling, yet floating, toward me. I thought of sticking out my tongue to taste the snow, but I decided against it. I imagined the other guy would notice and run over to rip it out. I went inside my car to warm up.

Soon firefighters arrived in a truck, and began questioning the other driver. I got out, and a man on the sidewalk holding two coffee cups asked me if I was the one driving on the road. I said yes, and he said he saw the other car obstructing the line of traffic. A firefighter asked me if I was hurt. I said no. He responded by saying the other driver said he was feeling whoozy. "Of course he did," I said. The firefighters got another call to attend to, so they left soon after.

I text messaged and then called a colleague who apparently was still at the office. Then my witness gave me his name, address and phone number. A police officer arrived shortly after 12:30pm. I didn’t get the police officer’s name, but he was older with white hair, either buzz-cut or balding. I was first to get out of the car, so the officer approached me. "Before I forget, here is my witness’s information," I told him.

"It’s OK," the officer said, looking at the road. "The other driver’s the one at fault."

Then he asked me what happened. By this time, the other driver was standing near the officer. I told the officer I was driving this way, and "he" was coming out of the parking lot. "How dare you!" the other driver said. The officer held up his hand, telling him to be quiet, that it was my turn. "Exchange information," the officer said. Neither of us had any paper, so the officer went back to his car and provided us with a motor vehicle crash exchange form. I gave the other driver my registration card and driver’s license and he gave me his. This guy's smiling photo could not be the same man broiling before me in the snow, but he really was. He was from Weston.

After the officer left, and after the other driver left, I called my insurance company from the parking lot and gave his information to them. The license plate number I was given had been swapped, my insurance rep said, which meant he could have just bought a new car and put new plates on it. "Or the car he was driving wasn’t his car," I said. The rep laughed and said that was possible, too. She put me on hold while she tried to connect with a local auto body shop. We got disconnected. I waited a few minutes for her to call me back, but I grew impatient and called again. I couldn't reach her.

After the third try, I decided to drive to the shop myself as it was only a mile away. But the bumper was hanging down and touching the front right wheel. I tried to figure out how to rig it with black rubber bungie cord or rope. I soon was fed up and tried to yank the thing off, and one young guy came along and helped me. I put the broken pieces of the bumper in the back seat, and slowly drove to the body shop in Watertown Square. Being aware of a big gaping hole in one corner of my car felt like I was driving with three wheels.

The auto body shop attendant (owner?) looked at the damage and estimated it would take about a week to do the work. I found out later that my auto insurance policy doesn't cover getting a rental car, but it's possible to get the other guy's insurance to cover it because needing to drive a rental is a result of the accident. I need to call his insurance company Friday morning to see if they'll do it.

Epilogue
I had planned to go to the ProvidenceTango New Year's Eve milonga, but didn't think it wise to drive all that way with my car in that condition. I didn't feel like bumming a ride. I felt this was the universe's way of telling me not to go anywhere. (Even in the morning, I woke with a sore throat and feared I was getting another round of tonsilitis, and if that were the case, I didn't want to infect anyone.) So I decided to stay in. On New Year's morning, my roommates (after checking their cell phones for any evidence of debauchery from the night before) and I went down the street to Uncommon Grounds for breakfast. I took a nap, and then wrote two blog posts.

Busy month

I wish I could say I was on an actual vacation for most of this month. I haven't actually written a real post here for most of July, as I've been unusually busy. Not really with busy work here and there, but I feel I'm occupying my time, for the most part, more wisely. There is a better sense of purpose. So here, I will try to do a brief (haha) synopsis of my month, picking up where I last left off.

My weekend getaway.
On July 4, I saw my friend and his wife, and caught up on life over the past year. I have grown so much in the time since we had last met, at their wedding, and it was good to hang out. Then it was off to an undisclosed location, which, by a number of readers of my blog had figured out from my photos, was in Rockland, Maine. I had hoped for a beach to lay out and just vegetate, but I ended up getting a ripe red farmer's tan (burn) just walking from my motel to the Rockland Breakwater, and beach time lasted only nearly two hours, tops. I got a free four-day three-night stay at the motel for resisting buying one of their timeshares after taking a tour of one of their condos. I decided to drive back to Massachusetts via Route 1, but after four hours and STILL in Maine, I hopped onto I-95, which ended up having worse holiday traffic. Six hours later, I landed in my neck of the woods and went straight to the last hour of the Cambridge tango practica, before heading home. All in all, it was a good trip, but I realized I could really do with a two-week vacation, which I haven't done since my trip to the U.K. over eight years ago during spring break of 2000.

Staples | Corporate Express acquisition (I mean, integration) website
Just before going to Maine I started work on the integration website of Staples and Corporate Express. And when I came back, I was working full-throttle on getting it done. One week I actually got an hour of overtime. It took me and a number of people on my team (I'm currently a contract web developer at Staples headquarters, for those who don't know) the better part of three or so weeks to get done what normally would have been months of work, according to one higher-up who applauded our efforts once we were done. I did most of the HTML, CSS, javascript and a dash of ASP (someone else did the Flash and design). I had some help on the javascript part from one former contractor who has gone full time. The Staples Corporate Express site is now live, but you need to have login access.

Then it is on to a new, big project, which I am knee deep in now. And once that's done, my duties will completely change. Sounds like good job security for now.

Life is a one-man play on a stage
One evening earlier this month, a friend of mine from New Hampshire and I went to the New Rep Theatre in Watertown to see "According to Tip", a one-man play performed by Broadway and TV star Ken Howard. I don't know anything about Broadway, or Tip O'Neill, but my friend is a political junkie. And because the New Reperatory Theatre is in my neighborhood, and because I am interested in the arts (even though I haven't done much with it), I thought what the hell. Ken Howard was great. Because he sang a handful of Irish drinking songs, does it count as a musical?

Howard has been around for a long time, and apparently he is sometimes in the U.S. version of "The Office," and he was in the (fantastic) movie "Michael Clayton," which starred George Clooney. I'm the type of person who can't do movie quotes to save my life, and therefore I cannot remember who Howard was in the movie. I'd have to watch it again.

Life is a one-man play on a stage, Part 2
The same night as "According to Tip" there was an Argentine tango milonga in Brookline. The play was done at 10:30pm-ish, and the milonga still had at least two hours left, so I decided to go. That was the most interesting two hours at a milonga I've had in a long time, if not ever. And that's putting it lightly. I saw my ex arrive there with a guy friend of hers, and I (apparently?) jumped to conclusions and had to step outside for a while to clear my head (see more about meditation, below). I stepped back inside and ended up having incredible dances with some of my favorite dancers, and with those I haven't danced with before (they were added to my list of favorites).

There are the types of good dancers who are so pre-occupied with doing a particular move RIGHT, as in pointing the foot at the correct angle to floor and juxtaposed to the leg blah blah blah, and there are the types of good dancers who move with feeling -- it may not be 100% correct but it FEELS goooood. I lean toward the latter, and I love dancing with those types of dancers too. For a while, I lost sight of that, and I'm comfortable with where I am. (I do know that if you combine both of those types of good dancers, the precise with the feeling, then your eyes roll back into your head with bliss. Been there, done that. That happens when the stars are aligned just perfectly.)

Hosting practica
In other tango news, I had been asked to be host to the Sunday practica in Cambridge. I was host on July 13, and will be host this Sunday. Basically, all this means is that I'm responsible for bringing water for everyone, ensuring that the vibe of practica remains friendly, be welcoming and dancing with new faces on the scene. I have no control over how freaking hot and muggy it gets in there, even when all three air conditioners and industrial fans are on at full blast. Thankfully, I don't need to mop up the drops of sweat on the floor. But I am responsible for having enough money to cover the rent.

Creative writing update
I haven't done much writing this month, other than writing prolific late-night (into early morning) entries in my journal after a long day (see "Life is a one-man play," parts 1 and 2, above, for example). Other than that, I have submitted a very small slice-of-life story as an entry to Grub Street's new literary magazine, the Rag Mag, which will debut Sept. 1. The story is labeled as fiction, although it's definitely based on a true story. In fact, I wrote it during a Grub Street writing class in early June, and it became one of my early blog entries, The revenge of the mysterious green plate monster. I hope it will be published in the Mag in one way or another. So far, I know that two people in my life have read it and that they loved it. I hope the rest of you do, too.

Crowning achievement
I finally got my second crown put in. This time porcelain instead of gold. I waited awhile to get it done, and therefore there were slight complications. I was under nitrous oxide (laughing gas) for about three long hours, and coming out of that consious yet coma-like state was rough. I had to sit down and drink some water to let my convulsing body iron out the shakes. Really weird.

Think twice about asking me to fix your computer
I messed up my computer bad. It actually happened the end of last month, and I let my computer whiz-kid friend up in Maine make a diagnosis. Yup, I lost all my files. Had I actually looked for my Windows XP setup CD, instead of using the PC Recovery Disc, I would have been A-OK. But the PC Recovery Disc reverted my computer as if I had just bought it this morning, taking me through the tour of Windows. Bizarrely, all my programs were fine, even Firefox 3, which I had downloaded a week before my computer wouldn't load. All the files that were stored in the My Documents folder? GONE. All the free videos I got from Amazon Unbox that were stored in a separate shared folder, videos I downloaded but don't have time to watch, and probably never will, were SAVED. Family and friends' photos? Gone. Budget spreadsheet I painstakingly built over the last year? Gone. Website source files for my previous clients? Gone. It's high time I invest in an external hard drive to back all my shit up. Now I'm re-building my budget with Google Docs (read: online).

Meditation and mindfulness
In many ways this should be first on this list. This has been one of the most important things I have done in a long while. It has been occupying most of my free time, when it's not spent dancing Argentine tango, surfing the Web, or taking walks. So because this section deserves more attention, and rightly so has turned from a brief synopsis on the list to a lengthy description of where I am at, "meditation and mindfulness" has become its own blog post.

One more week
There's still one more week to go for July. What more could possibly be in store for me?

Back to work today.

I didn't think about work from Wednesday night until this morning. It was good to get away. Now it's back to the grind.