Outside right now it -34°. Yes, you read that right. It’s so cold that I can’t push my chair in my regular gloves, I use another pair that, because of the lining inside of them, is harder to grip on my wheels. The dust from all the salt gets on my gloves and on my chair and makes them very slippery and I have to work way harder to go relatively short distances. I need more help.
I’m not going back to regular use of my power chair because, I don’t want to. I have it for emergencies, or to go down and get the mail, or off to a meeting here at the co-op, But that’s it. I am determined that I will be the motor that drives my life and determines my speed and destination, even if that means I need a bit more help to get to where I can easily help myself.
This is not understood very well.
Where the ground is dry, and free from snow, can be hard to spot because it’s all bleached white from the salt but I’ve learned to see it quickly. That I can do, even though I have to use the padded gloves, even though I have to fight against the salt slipperiness of pushing. Offered help is more insistent because people see me in danger of freezing, see me moving slowly, and want me out of the cold. But I persevere and get there eventually.
Next we are promised that we are getting weather in the range of the ‘sad pooper’ otherwise known as -4° (take a good look at it and you’ll see the sad pooper easily) and that will mean that my chair will be warmer and the air will not freeze inside my nose and that I can be outside a little longer taking less help. I’m treating it as a reminder of summer. (Only Canadians can consider the sad pooper a warm day.)
One fun thing, though, is the sound the chair makes as it goes over big chunks of salt. It’s like rolling over bubble wrap. I like it when it’s quiet and I can hear the wheels grinding it up. I’m trying to eat healthier and my chair is on a high salt diet. At work you can track my passageway by white lines leading in and to the elevator. You can see the turns I make in order to get out of the elevator and in through the main doors.
Now I’m being told that the ‘dew point’ is -30° … I don’t know what that is.
But I’m going out today -34° or not.
So I have a deeper ‘do point’ than Mother Nature.
And that makes me so cool, I’m cold.
