Near Death and a Cough

Yup ... you read it straight - had a near death experience yesterday (well ... perhaps I'm adding a bit of drama, but I'll give you the story anyway), but it isn't related to the cough - keep reading.

I was so excited to be leaving Saskatoon yesterday, after class, with a classmate. She was driving home to Calgary, and offered a ride. I ecstatically accepted, as I haven't seen my Husband in a couple of weeks.

We started out right after class, and were leaving the city of Saskatoon by about 12:30 or so. The roads were pretty icy, but there was other traffic out there, so we felt secure in my friend's Blazer. Right before we got to Delisle (45 KM away from Saskatoon), we had our "incident".

We were in a line-up of cars, all heading the same direction, all going no more than the speed limit. For some reason, our truck started fish-tailing (I'm still not sure why, I can't tell what was different between when we weren't sliding and when we were). We started drifting into the other lane (i.e. on-coming traffic), spun around, and wound up in the ditch on the opposite side of the highway. HOW we got lucky enough to avoid any oncoming traffic at that moment, I'll never know.

My classmate kept her cool, and eventually got us out of the ditch (took some fancy maneuvering to get out of the powdery snow ... how we wished we had our snowboards and a hill), and we kept going.

When we got to Delisle, we stopped at a gas station to recheck the windshield washer fluid, and as we were getting ready to hit the highway again, we actually talked about whether we should keep going or not.

My vote was to go back, and my friend agreed (I can't tell if it was the other way around though). So ... here I am in Saskatoon, writing about the harrowing highways that are holding me prisoner here (all the flights sold out between me getting home from the Delisle trip, and phoning the airline to book one - no joke).

My Husband is on the road right now, and will be here by supper time, so all is not lost, and I still get to see him this weekend.

As for the cough - I woke myself up last night (a few times) with a cough, cold, and congestion (just kidding, just saw a cough syrup commercial, really just a cough). I think I'm getting sick again, and now my weird craving for orange juice last week seems to make sense.

I'm going to try and rent some cross-country skis for my Hubby and I, and we'll see if we can head out tomorrow. As long as the weather follows the Weathernetwork forecast ... because if it stays around -20 C, I'm staying inside!

One of my roomies and I now have a pact that we're moving to California, because we can't handle the snow. I know, we'll get used to it, but we're enjoying being wimpy right now. I think we're supposed to get even more snow tonight. YIKES.

Another really funny thing is that it's kind of a Stat holiday here in Canada (i.e. the U of S is closed, most Government offices are closed, etc. BUT ... some offices are taking Monday as the holiday instead, so not everybody is off) in lieu of Remembrance Day tomorrow. Today's the day that the condo maintenance crew where I live decide that they need all the cars moved from the parking lot from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM. So ... on a day when a lot of people probably aren't working, when there is so much snow that (for me, anyway) parking on the street would mean that I wouldn't get my car out without a push, they want us to move our for 9 hours. Hmmmmm .... doesn't seem to add up, to me. I actually started my car this morning, and drove around looking for somewhere that I could park, but all I encountered were huge banks that my car CLEARLY wouldn't CLEAR. So ... I'm back in my stall, and they'll have to plow around me. I did try, though. Oh well.

I bought a pomegranate at Co-Op yesterday (mmmm ... pomegranates), and there was a sign there illustrating (with pictures) how to dice one up. I've always taken the brute force method, and resulted with tiny sprays of pomegranate juice staining my clothes (usually white t-shits, which I always seem to be wearing for some reason when I attempt the feat of seeding a pomegranate). The pictures showed filling a bowl with water, seeding the pomegranate under the water (I'm guessing, so stifle the juice spray), and then straining the resulting seeds. GENIUS! I'm going to try it today.