NRKANGEL'S BLOG

nRkangel

Something Old, Something New...
Wednesday, June 30, 2004

I read a post from another 'coat who hails from Burlington, VT (Hiya Liz! Thanks for the nice comment! ) and it occurred to me that the world is really a small place.

I'm a transplanted Canadian living and working in California who travels a lot for work. At least once or twice a year, I make my way to Burlington and nearby Montreal, Canada in order to visit IBM (one of my company's clients).

It was on one of those trips that I have one of my favorite travel stories. It was winter and I was headed down from Montreal in a rental car. Being from Canada, I've driven in snowy conditions before so I wasn't particularly concerned. Besides the snowflakes were the big, fluffy type that lazily plopped themselves down on my windshield and this had lulled me into a false sense of security. At the time, I only had the hotel on my mind and just wanted to grab a hot shower and check e-mail before heading to dinner.

By the way, if you're ever in the Burlington area and have the chance, visit the Culinary Academy that's housed in the same location that used to be the old Governor’s mansion. It’s more than worth the effort if you want to spoil yourself (or a date) with a little elegant dining.

So there I am, enjoying a casual (albeit slow – like 30-45mph slow) drive and not in any particular hurry, when it suddenly occurs to me that I hadn't seen any traffic for some time. There was no one in front or behind me that I could see and even the highway going in the opposite direction seemed void of traffic. Feeling a little creepified, I looked around a little more closely to see if I hadn't somehow maybe entered the Twilight Zone.

The road ahead had been plowed, but not in the last hour so I could barely see the blacktop. The most recent tire tracks were quickly becoming a vague winter memory as only slight indentations remained and were being patiently wiped out by the thick snow.

I resisted an urge to stop simply because I wanted to get to my destination, but I was fascinated at how the world around me suddenly became a vast, white wasteland. Trees with naked limbs and branches clawed at the grey skies while the hills next to the highway loomed above like titans passing judgement. Naturally my thoughts slid uncomfortably close to "what the heck do I do if I drive off the stupid road?"

Just about that time, the car starts to pull to the side by itself (doesn't that just about figure?) and I realize that, slow as I’m going, I’m starting to slide. I take my foot off the gas, turn into the slide but it becomes pretty obvious that nothing I do will help. Turning the wheel does nothing, tapping the breaks does nothing. I would have had more success flapping my arms or praying to the Cold Miser for all the good that my defensive driving was doing. The only good news is that I was going so slowly that when I actually started to spin out, I could have finished the New York Times crossword puzzle (in pencil – I’m a coward) before I’d made one full rotation.

During the ridiculously slow ballet, I stayed in the car only because I knew the damned thing would probably run me over if I got out. (And how the heck would you explain that to anyone coming along after? "What? You got hit by your own car in the middle of the highway? Where are you FROM anyway?"


So I stayed inside, totally at the mercy of nature, physics and the fickle hand of fate.

Finally, two full turns later, the car stops facing the wrong way and about two hand-spans from the center guardrail. I get out and see the big loopy signature my car made in the fresh snow and bite back relief masquerading as nearly semi-hysterical laughter that's trying to break free.

Far in the distance, I see headlights of approaching traffic. Not wanting to be an obstacle (and certainly not wanting anyone to see me in this situation) I climbed in and s-l-o-w-l-y turned the car around and inched down the road again.

Everytime I think about this incident, I get this picture of me in a car on a snowy highway doing big, slow spins while the music from Swan Lake plays in the background...


On a more sobering note, while I made it safely into Burlington about an hour and a half later, I saw, in the space between the highways, a semi that had lost control and ended up on it’s side along with a blue van that had obviously rolled down the hill after the semi. An ambulance and police car were on scene, so I didn’t stop, but if I hadn’t been given pause before, I sure had a wake up call then.

Needless to say, I’ve avoided winter driving on the East Coast ever since, and when I go skiing here in CA, I always have chains in the back of the car…

(…old pilots…bold pilots…no old, bold pilots…. I plan on being the first kind… )

hmm... enough with the reminiscing.

Today's been ok although I just got a call from one of the guys from our Japan office and he wanted to know if the rumor of my leaving was true. Since we've become friends over the years, I told him "yes, it was true" and that I would be gone sometime before the end of the year. (I swore him to secrecy, but I have to wonder if it'll be any use as the rumor is already out there.) He was sorry to hear that I was going to leave, but he encouraged me to try and make it somewhere he'll be so we can put on the party hats one more time.

(One of these blogs I'll have to describe a typical party night ina Japanese corporation...it can be as crazy as they say it is...)

Well, between dropping off parts to a customer, visiting the Department of Motor Vehicles, responding to the e-mails and phones as well as blogging, I can't help but feel it's been a pretty good day. Before I go, though, I want to start something else that I haven't done since I kept my journal in high school.

In the past, whenever I had made a journal entry, I always put a song title at the end of the entry. I can't remember why I started doing it, but it always gave me a touchstone to my younger self when I'd go back and re-read the entry months or years later.

I remembered it particularly because I heard a new song today that seems to fit my mood perfectly from someone I've never heard of. (I love new discoveries like that...) She was doing an interview on a radio station explaining how she got her odd name. But when they finally got around to playing her song, it struck me as speaking so closely to what I was feeling that I remembered my old custom and decided to revive it.

So, older self, here's....



Another White Dash
- Butterfly Boucher

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