The Day After the Blizzard of February 2026

What a month! It was the worst blizzard for me despite the fact that I have lived through much worse storms in my 80 years because I am 80! Old Age complicates everything.

What I did not have in preparation that I should have: I had no winter boots! I haven't needed any because the storms of the past few years have been small and soon gone, and because I am old and unsteady on my feet I have had no reasons to walk in bad weather for several years. ALSO, beause my spine has stiffened due to desiccated disc disease, I am not flexible enough to reach my feet and snow boots are notoriously hard to get on. So over the years I gave them all away. I had no hiking poles either which would have provided stability. I have ordered both from amazon.

I had no cash on hand. I wasn't thinking of needing any and it turned out ok because the guy I finally found to shovel me out from this week's BLIZZARD was willing to take a check because he knows me. Billy Johnson was a student of mine way way back in the late 80's and he has done roofing repairs for me from time to time so he was willing to take a check after I phoned him for help.

What I did have in preparation: plenty of food for both me and the pets. Fortunately I had shopped a couple of days before the most recent storm and laid in a good supply of cat food and Chewy Delivery had brought two dozen prescription dog food cans.

Speaking of dog food, I have to vent about my dog, Uma. Since she has been on the prescription food for pancreatitis (esacerbated by fat in foods), she has been fanatically obsessive about eating cat poop (which has a lot of fats in it). It caused her to have another attack of pancreatitis last month but that's a way dogs are different from us - if someone eats something that causes unbearable pain (say if they are lactose intolerant) they stop eating it - something that is like a poison to them. But Uma cannot make that connection and though I have altered my habits to scooping the three downstairs kitty litters almost daily, she finds poop at some point and eats it. She tears down the gates I have put up. The storm has made her even crazier because she is bored and becomes obsessed with eating. Today I was thinking, as I watched her trying to tear up the hall gate right after she'd had a nice bowl of dog food with brown rice and dry dog food mixed in - about 2 cups of food, that her food insecurity must come from the years before I adopted her as well as the fat free diet she needs now. I think she must have been starved before. I have never known a dog so food obsessed. I have to put her on the porch or out in the dog run to get some relief from her insistent begging and barking. It is as bad as having a toddler. Today I was trying to get my March birthday cards done and she barked so much on the porch that I put her in the dog run and she barked her head off there. I brought her in and she barked to go out. I fed her and put her out again and let her bark for about 15 minutes. Then of course she had to come back in.

So for the whole month of February with one storm after another, the worst being the two weeks in the beginning of the month when the 8 to 10 inches of snow we got froze for two weeks into a kind of concrete. Uma has had no walks, and for several days in each period after the storm, my car was snowed in and I couldn't even take her for a ride, my go to solution for her restless anxiety.

Last night my neighbor Linda told me to look at my car. I had told her I had a guy coming to shovel if she wanted me to send him to her next. She was put off by the price - $80 for my driveway, car, and path. She said the snow was melting anyway. So I went onto the porch to see and the dog got out and in between the dog's legs, Patsy the cat got out. When I picked her up to come back in, her tail got caught in the storm door and she screamed and dug all her claws into my chest.

It was the last straw, I fell into loud crying the like of which I have not experienced since my mother died. The lack of exercise, the lack of mobility, the disruption of all my scheduled errands and appointments and a myriad of other small frustrations that wouldn't have been a problem in normal circumstnces came to an avalanche last night and broke me.

After a few minutes, I pulled myself together with some yoga breathing and I put on a British detective series to distract my mind and in about an hour, I was fairly stable again.

This moring after Billy Johnson dug me out, I drove to Dunkin' Donuts and got a latte' but a red light came on my dash for the oil. I had an appointment for this morning for an oil change at Rob's garage, but was't dug out in time to make it. I stopped in at Rob's and he told me to come tomorrow morning at 8:30. So I had to reschedule my final quilt class scheduled for that day.

Ah yes, and then there was the quilt course. There was no mention of level when I signed up nor was there any mention of requirements. I spent $120 for the course, then $120 for fabric and tools (special ruler and cutting mat, roller knife) and I turned out to be the only beginner. Everyone else had made half a dozen quilts. I didn't know I was required to sew at home on my machine either. I had to get new needles as the needle in my sewing machine broke, and get my sewing machine set up again.

I never knew what I was doing and my quilt was (I have to admit it) downright ugly. I was a full week/atep behind the others so the teacher set up an appointment for me for a one to one tutoring hour to do the finishing touch - the binding. (another $40 plus $60 for special pins and other stuff). So far it has cost $400 in a month when I didn't have much money because I had my property taxes $1500 to pay. I just hadn't seen ahead or predicted.

A big issue has been my lack of balance and mobility. I just couldn't walk on the snow even with crampons on my shoes. I was so unstable it was frightening. I am old - my balance is gone, I am overweight, and sedentery, and always feel in danger.

This whole month of February I have been trapped in anxiety, unable to walk even to the car let alone to the corner store. Once, Sue took an Uber from her place to here to chop me out of the frozen snow. I just wasn't prepared because I didn't expect this amount of snow - this blizzard, this month of freezing temperatures. For the first time, I could comprehend the allure of old people for the South, for Florida or Arizona. I still wouldn't want to live there, but I get it now.

One big realization that came out of this is that I have to get myself together. AS soon as the final chains around my ankles are removed (the March Women's History Art Show in Haddonfield, the one in Merchantville, the cursed quilt class, finding a place to get my painful toenails cut, once the car is fixed), once that is all taken care of I need to find a fitness routine that I CAN DO AT HOME as well as getting back to the gym. I have to get sronger, physically which will help me get stronger emotionally.

The positive: I had to write out several birthday cards and this is what I thought and wrote: There are climbers whose goal it is to climb the 7 highest peaks in the world. I think achieving 70 or 80 years is like climbing those 7 peaks. We have reached the top. We survived many dangers - blizzards, avalanches, physical pains, low oxygen, our personal limitations, and we made it. It is an achievement.

So, I have climbed EIGHT peaks and I have quite a panorama to survey. I can see down into the valleys of the past, follow the rivers on their vast journeys, see the clouds in the distance and feel the cold wind of the high altitudes in my face.

February is on its way out and soon March and Spring will defeat the Polar Vortex and the Arctic Blast and the Bomb Cyclone. We will have sunshine and "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower" will be flowing again.

wrightj45@yahoo.com