Today was grocery shopping day. I wish I hadn’t waited till I ate all the yummy things in the house before I replenished the supplies, but it’s been very cold and snowy of late.

I get around with a cane. It just isn’t smart to get out any more than one has to if it means negotiating bad walkways.

Yeah, I had my vintage scarf on!

Predictably, while I was gone, someone took my cleared spot, leaving me the sloppy one. I don’t blame her: I almost fell three, four times on it!

I took my groceries into the apartment. Andy and Dougy, as usual, waited there to supervise. (“…get in the way!”)

I tried to park in a spot that’s melted off a bit.

However, when I stepped out, as soon as I put weight on my feet to leverage myself out of the car, my left foot slipped. Slush, when compressed, becomes a skating rink.

I got out of the car, finally. My camera has a touch screen, and I didn’t take this intentionally. It happened when the camera brushed against my jacket. Would you want your granny walking on this $#!+?

A second accidental photo, in which you see a guy concerned because he’s slipped several times but managed not to fall on his @$$. This time.

Like many institutions, the non-profit that runs my apartment complex has had to cut staff over the nearly ten years I’ve lived here, to save money. Despite the severe cuts in the maintenance staff, they do a decent job (read “heroic job”) of keeping up with chores like snow removal, even to the point of clearing one’s walk out of order if someone has a doctor’s appointment, for example, and can’t wait till their walk comes up in the cycle.

Parking spaces, however, aren’t high priority at the apartments. They clear the walk on the house side of the parking space, but not by my car. I back into the space, and avoid most of the slippery hazards.

Of course, since the parking spots aren’t assigned, when my neighbor’s helper (a very nice person) comes when I am gone for groceries, she takes a chance I’ll be gone long enough for her to do whatever she came over to do, and parks in the spot the director of the non-profit told me was where I am supposed to park when I arrived here in November 2004.

I bought some mint Oreos today. Maybe I can quintuple-stack the mint “stuff” like I used to do so I could enjoy the chocolate wafer cookies left over. (The “stuff” is kind of gross this way. Gack!)

Of course, the lot next to the parking spot didn’t have a house on it then. Fortunately for me, the woman who lives there doesn’t have a car, so we worked out that I can park where I was told I can park. (Crazy!)

In the almost 10 years I’ve lived here, I’ve recovered from one major illness, had another major illness, and have less strength and endurance than I had coming into this period. Where I park is an issue more and more. Where I can’t park when I need to is an even bigger one.

Time for a handicapped parking tag and car plates? Maybe so, though that’s no guarantee I won’t still fall on my @$$ on uncleared parking spots, lanes, or sidewalks.