Being on the “physically unable to perform” roster on the home team, the snow shoveling position for this most recent game of snow fall was left up to my loving wife–Oz.  When I arrived home from a full day at the office, and 30 minutes in the whirlpool, and the bi-nightly visit to the grocery, the walks and driveway had been shoveled a couple of times during the day (Monday) by Oz.  With the little bit of additional snow that fell after the last shoveling, I was hoping that I’d get up early and go out with big blue (my snow pusher) and just be able to push the remaining bit away.  However, when I finally rolled out of bed in the morning and tried to straighten up, I knew that was not a good idea, at least at that point in time.

Oz came in the bedroom and announced that she was going out and clear the end of the driveway, which had been plowed in overnight.  And, as my luck would have it, by time I got downstairs, the coffee was made, the paper was in, and the wife was out shoveling snow.  So, what’s a guy to do?  Did my stretching exercises, being careful to maintain “PFA” (pain free activity), as much as possible at least.  Then sitting on the edge of the couch, I drank my coffee, read some of the paper, listened to the morning news.  Then I cautiously rose from the couch to start the process of getting ready for work.

Oz and "big mouth"

Oz came in from shoveling and announced that she loaned our neighbor my blue pusher and “big mouth”.  “Big mouth” is the name given to the red plastic grain/snow shovel that I had given Oz a couple of years ago for Christmas.  When I left for work the neighbor returned same.  After making sure that he was indeed done, I placed “big mouth” and “blue” back in the garage.  Then as I placed my bags in the car, I noticed that the garbage cans hadn’t been cleared.  So, I grabbed big mouth and within 5 minutes of easy shoveling I had them cleared, just in case today is collection day (I can never keep track of it).  And, the really good news is that my back didn’t complain by the little bit of shoveling I did do, and that’s a good thing! And, it was collection day, so a good thing indeed that I cleared the cans.