We are OK, both of the cars are OK . . . the trees: not so much.

Yes, the last image is a large branch collapsed right onto the spot where the cars live. Sunday night, I was just falling asleep when I heard trees starting to break and collapse all around us. I went down, looked out the window, then woke John up. We ran out, frantically chiseled our way into the cars (luckily I had forgotten to put a little ice-scraper back inside my car — it’s been sitting in the kitchen for weeks) and managed to back them up enough to be missed by the tree. Said tree was already sagging down over their roofs — we had to snap off twigs and branch ends to shut the doors — which sounds silly but we were concerned that any added stress could bring the tree down on us. It was both highly surreal and quite entirely terrifying. Just a little adrenaline laced midnight romp, sleet raining down on us freezing on our glasses, eerie orange and blue flashes in the sky as transformers all over town blew (a particularly bizarre lightening show), trees exploding all over the place, scampering back every time the wind came up to avoid potential squashdom. Trying to shift the fallen branches already blocking the end of the driveway enough to back the cars to safety. We finally got back inside after an hour, drenched and frozen to the bone. Then waited to the power to fail — which thankfully our immediate neighborhood was spared.

Post clean-up, phase one. We were saved by a chain saw wielding stranger, who sawed up all the limbs. Which we were trying to do with a little hand saw we use for small pruning jobs. Great guy, wouldn’t even take any money. Living the the snow belt sometimes the happiest sight is someone you don’t even know coming towards you carrying a chain saw.

These piles don’t even represent all the damage. There are still a couple big limbs down (but out of the way) and the one smaller one next to the shed that still attached to the tree. Not to mention that big droopy-on-the-ground branch that may still fall. Which is why the cars are still only part-way up the drive to their spots; if it snaps I don’t want them getting backlashed. The rest of cleaning up can wait; at least until Spring.

And even though my fingers were going numb and frostbite threatened I managed to shoot a couple of really nice texture shots of frozen twig action.

Read Full Post »

First day of our annual vacation and we’d had a delicious brunch at the 45th Parallel (best breakfast spot ever); moved our car to our favorite shady parking spot and I’d taken a snap of our favorite vacation visual.

This waterwheel, which we love and as a bonus it makes a delightful chuggy, chuggy sound as it turns.

Then I did a braindead thing: I tripped, couldn’t catch my balance (damn you, infernal inner ear disease) and took an ugly fall, smacked down hard on the asphalt, rolled onto my back and just lay there hoping no one in a giant SUV was heading down the marina drive at that exact moment on account of that’s where I happened to be sprawled out.

Here’s the adventure part: I now know exactly where the hospital in Traverse City is. My right knee had a rather alarming and totally freaky bloop sticking out of one side so John fetched the car and off we went down the road to the emergency room so I could get an x-ray. The upside is that because we were on vacation the hospital was only 15 miles away and we were only at the hospital for 3 hours. At home the hospital is 40 miles away and the wait time to see a doctor would probably have been at least 3 hours.

The final result is that I didn’t break or tear anything and my knee will (eventually) heal on it’s own. The freaky bloop is still there (but smaller) and I’m still limping a bit (especially on stairs or steps). I also kinda messed up my right hand but it’s getting less painful and stiff and I can actually grip things this week. Most of the bruises are at least starting to fade and the scrapes are healing up.

We didn’t let this ruin our vacation. although we had to eliminate a couple of activities and it reduced our strolling speed to a gimpy crawl. We still had a really good relaxing time. As a karmic payback the weather was unseasonably and unexpectedly warm — really perfect actually.

More good news, I did manage to partially twist so I didn’t land directly on my face (face missed out on injury all together) and I did automatically jettison the skull bag at exactly the right moment so that the camera inside it did not sustain any damage (luckily neither did the bag). I’m only pissed that I didn’t manage to compensate enough to avoid anything more than scrapes and slight bruises. In case this whole paragraph sounds a little odd: I went through some training as a child to automatically react in certain patterns when in a falling-down situation so as to minimize injury (I think it’s still a first year requirement at Hoggwarts or maybe that was Jedi school — Ha!).

Next week: back to regular (ghastly thought; I almost typed normal) blog activities.

Read Full Post »