No, dragonknitter, if anything they've SPED UP the ice see here. It's supposed to hit TONIGHT.

How glad I am to have my groceries, you have no idea. I am so relieved that I will not be fighting over the last carton of milk with someone.

The branch that threatened my power line is now gone (The secretary, when I told her what I was going to do, looked at me like I was nuts: "You're sure you can do that?" Yeah, I said, it's a low branch. And it was.) The one threatening my cable line into the house - now, that's another matter. I thought I could cut the branch and sort of "rotate" it off (one of the branchlets is over the cable, the other is under the cable). I had to work really hard to get through the branch (And holding my hands over my head and sawing does something screwy to my blood pressure; I was really dizzy after than and I had to get off the ladder and sit down on the bottom step for about five minutes). So I cut as much off the branch as I could reach (without climbing to the tip-top of the ladder). There's still a chunk of branch dangling off the cable but unless we get lots and lots of ice it will probably be ok.

I did call the cable company and the receptionist said she'd do her best to get someone out to remove it. I'm sure they'd rather take off a branch today (if they at all have time) than maybe replace the whole cable later on.

Yeah, yeah, I could have asked someone to help me. But there aren't that many people around this afternoon and I still have my ongoing dislike of looking like a "fruit-cup girl." (And most of the men in this department are shorter than I am anyway. And it seems like it would take a tall person - or a person with a taller ladder than I own - to manage it).

****

And, thinking further: It strikes me that this is one way in which I am very much like my maternal grandmother. In many ways I am not like her: She grew up on a farm, married young (her husband was 32 when they married; she was 16. One of her children once asked her why she married so young and to a man she didn't know ALL that well. Her response was: "I wanted to get off the farm."). She was (at least when I knew her) considerably more opinionated and feisty and, yes, cranky, than I am capable of being with another person, even when they perhaps deserve it.

Her marriage lasted over 50 years but one thing her husband turned out not to be good at (though apparently he was a good man in many ways - I never met him), was taking care of the fix-it type jobs. So she did them.

In fact - when she was in her 80s she was up on her roof, fixing it. She hurt her back fairly badly that time and I think that was the last time her grandkids let her up on the roof.

But anyway. I'm just doing what she did, I guess: in the absence of a handy man (or in the absence of a man at all that I feel comfortable asking for help), I'm doing it myself. Would I rather have had someone else do it? I guess - if it were someone who could have done a better job than I. What I really would rather have had would have been someone there by my side - someone to grab the branch as I cut it, someone to suggest someone we could borrow a taller ladder from.

But I manage, just like my grandmother managed. I wonder how many women in the history of the world have been like that - kind of gritting their teeth and going "I've never done this before and I'm not sure if I'm doing it RIGHT or if I'm strong enough, but I'm going to take a stab at it, 'cos otherwise it won't get done." I suspect the answer is "far more than our society's picture of what makes a "woman" would have you believe."

I mean - taking as an example someone who's in the news right now - can you imagine Posh Spice (Sorry, I don't know her real name...) climbing up on a ladder to saw down branches? I'm sure she could if she had to (Well, maybe not the size of the branches I took down; one of them probably was more than half her weight). But the image that's projected is that Girls Don't Do That....though out here in the sticks, we more than often DO.

Maybe we need to bring back the image of the cowgirl - the capable, handy, smart, independent woman who's not afraid of getting a little dirty (and who has practical knowledge, like that you don't squat when you have spurs on).