Everything's Relative

So, after the day of boredom with an undercurrent of fear which is how it is in a major snowstorm, even when you're among friends, despite cheerful blogging to keep your spirits up, today was a bit different.  

Because one of the overriding emotions around here yesterday was rage -- the plows never showed up.  Which meant that my friends and I had to dig out an enormous amount of snow by hand.  We release our cars so that when the plows come, they can be moved to allow the parking lot to be cleaned up in sections. Pictures of my friends digging were ironic -- there was nobody else.

Except they never came.  No amount of emailing and calling management resulted in any action, nor any explanation, whatever. 

Until this morning, when the whole shebang swung into action, cats, plows, graders, and started the work that should have happened yesterday.  At this point, a lot of owners are calling for new management and firing the old one. I have been through a few management teams in my ownership of condo and townhouse, and have to say there's not much to choose between them.  They're all hopeless, as far as I can see.  Evidently they let the contractor decide to do one entire development one day, another the next, and so on, rather than the usual method of spreading the crews around to take care of everyone on the first day after a major storm.  We drew the short straw, it seems.

So, mad as a snowed-on hen, I decided to calm down and cook this morning, roasted a nice chicken breast, pounded then breaded with egg and panko plus hot Indian spicy things name escapes me, and sea salt.  Sliced, this will work in several meals in the next few days.

And I made a big soup, involving onions, turmeric, spearmint pesto, chicken stock, tomatoes, cilantro, pumpkin, bell peppers, and, after cooked and blended, a can of cannellini beans.  And it's great.  Spicy enough, very thick, and just good.  I do like the addition of beans, adds interest.

It's a good thing I made soup, since shortly after that I found that one of my neighbors, one of the people busy helping dig out my car yesterday, took a terrible fall in the evening, broke and dislocated an elbow, hurt her face, and quickly needed another neighbor to get her to the hospital.  Because there had been no plowing, ambulances could not get through, and he had to put her in his own car and get her  to the ER.

So, she's home today, awaiting surgery tomorrow, and the soup came in handy.  I ran some of it over to her for lunch, and it worked out fine.  After that I found I wasn't mad about the snow removal any more, beyond indignation that she hadn't been able to get the ambulance to get her in for treatment.  So I guess it all depends on the context.  

K. has so much more than snow removal to suddenly be concerned with, that it puts it in better proportion.  She has to figure out how to manage, a left handed person with a broken left elbow, single parent, teacher, needing to function and work, and drive and how to do all of this with one working arm.  Her daughter's old enough to drive, so that part's okay.  But still.

So that's the latest in this never a dull moment part of the world.