What a Day

The daytime wind chills yesterday were negative seventeen. The inches and inches deep snow layer still on the ground found itself scoured by the winds into drifts across the roads wherever open fields exist. There are many around here, fields filled with corn or soybeans in more temperate weather. When not drifting, the blowing snow stuck to the light, morning fall of fresh snow coating the road surface, making danceable ice patches. Oh, for my figure skates! Just kidding. I had ice skates as a child, but any skating I ever attempted was downright laughable.

Braving all this, I headed out to the book signing in Macungie. The day’s weather adventure had just begun. My signing adventure was in the offing.

The trip which should have taken no more than ten minutes took about twenty-five. Not bad, considering how we all poked along. When I arrived at the Macungie Memorial Park building, I pulled into the parking lot and breathed a temporary sigh of relief. Because, yeah, I still had to unload my car in this dangerously cold morning and lug everything inside to the Winter Craft Fair where I and my friend Autumn had a table for our books.

I parked and then re-parked, thinking by turning my car in the other direction I’d be protected from the wind while I emptied it. Yeah. Well. Maybe I was, but it didn’t feel like it, and I still had to cross the lot anyway. Once I’d packed and bungie-corded all my boxes onto the two separate carts (why did I not bring the large one where everything would have fit quite nicely? I really don’t know), I headed across the lot to a ramp and up to the front door. I went inside. Easy-peasy, right? Except on this side of the parking lot, the door entered was not the correct one. This was “upstairs”. My table was on the lower floor, which meant out the door, down the ramp, to a driveway-ish road alongside the building, and around to the building’s back end. The woman I spoke to offered to help me carry my carts down the stairs inside. I envisioned the problems with that and politely declined. Besides, she seemed quite busy getting everyone else to their designated tables. How hard could a quick jaunt around the building possibly be? I’d already braved the wind to cross the lot, right?

Yep. Yep. Yep.

I went back out into the wailing winds, sans earmuffs because I’d left them at home. I had a hood. That would be enough for a quick trip across a parking lot, yes? It would have been, if my hood stayed in place during the onslaught which, naturally, it did not. I gave up trying to keep it there. My hands were full hauling two carts and the futile stopping to pull the hood back up onto my head eventually struck me as senseless and closer to frostbite.

So down the road I went. Literally down, because it sloped. Twice, the wind stopped me dead in my tracks. Slammed into me and brought me to a halt. My ears started to feel like they were on fire. I wondered to myself again if frostbite could be setting in this quickly. (Later that night, while waiting with my sons for our Escape Room appointment, my youngest son informed me I had about twenty more minutes of exposure before that would have happened, so my worries and wondering were a bit premature. Not by much, I’ll tell you, no matter what he said.)  Anyway, I reached the bottom where the road curved to the right, but I had to stop and wait, because a car was pulling out from its haphazard parking job. Those who had been better informed knew they could pull their vehicle right on down to the “lower” floor and drop off their goods inside, before parking their cars in the lot above. Too late for me, though. I was already there, exposed to the elements, carts in hands. Behind me, another car was coming. I had nowhere to go with my carts to get out of the way, because the piles of snow all around made the lane very narrow indeed.

Then it happened. Mother Nature said, let’s do this, shall we? and blew with all her might. The top box on each cart escaped bungie prison and tumbled through the air. One broke, dumping its contents. Although being bound by rubber bands, a handful of rampaging bookmarks and business cards broke loose and cartwheeled across the ice before gleefully swirling away, shouting, “We’re free!” As I swore (yes, I had a few choice words) and scrambled to collect the remaining fallen paraphernalia, the car pulling out and the one pulling down were now forced by circumstance to completely stop. I glanced once at the drivers and thought, “You’re FINE. You’re INSIDE out of this WIND.” My inner tone was likely not as nice as it could have been.

I did finally get everything back into a position to continue navigating toward the door. I wished those runaway business cards and bookmarks a good life, because there was no way I was chasing them across the field. Determined, I continued inside, my black pants now smeared with road salt from my sojourn on my knees, my mood turning somewhat sour.

Once inside, after traversing a particularly impudent threshold where the metal seemed intent on keeping my wheeled carts out, I found my table. Four Hershey kisses had been deposited on the table (two for each participant) by the folks running the show. I looked at the silver-foiled chocolates while I contemplated how best to start setting up. I was feeling somewhat frazzled, you see. So frazzled that before I proceeded, I snatched up the two kisses that were mine, ripped them open and promptly popped them in my mouth, despite the fact it wasn’t even eight o’clock in the morning. I eyeballed Autumn’s share of the bounty for another moment, thinking, “she’ll never know.” But in the end, I set them aside for her and broke out the tablecloth for the table, step one in setup. Autumn arrived ten or fifteen minutes later.

Thus began a day that ended up being quite fun. I think the weather kept attendance lower than usual for these events, but we still had a few sales, and even more fabulous conversations. People we meet at our book signings are always interesting and funny and just make the whole process worthwhile. Sales of books are nice, sure, but interaction with wonderful people is the best. Whether or not they buy a book isn’t the point, really. (Liar, you’re thinking, but I know you understand what I mean.) I like to believe we are enriched by our communication. And remembered. As a writer, no on-line ad is going to give you that dividend. And as a human being, the exchange is priceless.

(PS–In case you noted the drop-in mention about an Escape Room later that night, that was a GREAT experience. We’re going back yet again next month with my daughters-in-law attending, too. I think I’m hooked. Might have to blog about that. Stay tuned!)