Add this to Venus square Jupiter on the same day and you get me, a stroller, a two-year-old, a desire to get to Toddler Singalong at a nearby public library and a shitload of snow on top of the other shitloads that have already fallen in Cambridge this January.
It takes us about 20 minutes on any given day to get ready to leave the house. I've learned to leave a little canvas tote bag packed with outdoor essentials -- money, glasses, napkins, clementines, cell phone and panda -- down in my hallway near the front door, so at least that's something not to have to think about.
Then it's carry Star Child downstairs, sit her on my bed, take off my indoor cotton trousers, put on the silk long johns and whichever one of my two pairs of outdoor pants are clean, take off thin cotton socks, put on horrible but warm fuzzy acrylic ones, then the equally horrible fuzzy acrylic boot liners, open the front door, retrieve the incredibly stylish multi-colored polka dot T.J.Maxx $19.99 rubber wellies I bought myself for Christmas that live outside on the doormat and pull them on, all the while carrying on an in-depth conversation with Star Child about yes, we're going outside, right, Sweet Pea is going to stay here, yes, panda is coming with us but he's already in the bag etc. etc.
Once I've got my bottom half on I can start on her. On go her leg warmers - a mismatched pair of her mother's old socks with the toes cut off, one beige, one red and black stripes - and if she's going in the stroller she gets stuffed into a puffy snow suit overall thing. Her boots get retrieved from the mat outside and we do a push, push as her feet go into the boots, usually on the wrong feet first so they come off and we do it again.
Now I get to put on my first layered sweater and then the big bulky black one, she comes off the bed and one of her fleecy hooded tops go on, as does my winter coat. By now we're both beginning to resemble the Michelin Man and movement is, to say the least, restricted, but there's still my neck warmer and hat to go and then her almost full-length down coat. At this point she is truly incapable of movement so we do the sack of potatoes lift with my left arm and with my right hand I pick up the folded stroller and stagger down the stairs. Put her down, open the door to the porch, put her outside on the porch, put the stroller on the porch, lock the door, take the stroller down the six steps to pavement level, leave it there and come back and get her. Sit her in it, find the shoulder straps, fit them into the buckle on the padded thing that goes between her legs, stuff the tote bag into the space under where she sits, open the gate, push her outside on to the pavement, close the gate and we're ready to go. If I were not taking Wellbutrin and Celexa I would get as far as putting on my big black sweater before taking it off again and going back upstairs to let her watch Tubby Toast on youTube for as long as she liked.
Preliminaries over ha ha, we set off for singalong, and made it all the way to the corner (we're the third house in) before the first obstacle appeared -- a foot or so of cleared sidewalk in between four feet high snowbanks. The snow was still soft, so I was able to turn the stroller around, tip it on its back legs, walk backwards myself and pull it through, but then of course the minute we crossed the road we were met with the same thing on the other side. Repeat performance and off we went on the side street, where some people had cleared their sidewalks and some hadn't. Undaunted, our Venusian goal like the Star of Bethlehem beckoning us onward, we soldiered on, sometimes with me picking up the stroller complete with Star Child in it and tottering along that way for a couple of feet (if you can totter in wellington boots), sometimes walking backwards and pulling, sometimes unstrapping her and carrying her ten feet or so ahead and then going back to retrieve the stroller and sometimes being helped by passing motorists who would stop their cars, get out, politely not ask me if I was insane and help me over particularly unnavigable drifts.
We managed about half a mile of this before we got to a major roadway bordering the Fresh Pond Reservoir, and even from across six lanes of traffic I could see the sidewalk we needed to take by the reservoir had barely been cleared. Just in case there might be a miracle along the lines of the Parting of the Red Sea once we got across, I struggled through the piles of slush on the corners and made it over the road, but there was no miracle and the snow was as immutable a force as you would expect on a Mars opposed to Pluto day.
There was nothing for it but to turn around, face the slush again and retrace our stroller tracks, although on the way back I did give in to the inevitable and walk on the roadway on the uncleared side streets. We got back to the house just about the time singalong was due to start and were met by a surprised looking Ama. "Back so soon?" she said.
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