The hundred and seven steps

I live in a townhouse condo, it's small but for he most part it suits my purposes just fine. It's cheap to heat, it's well located, fairly quiet, the taxes aren't bad. The one thing that I hate passionately though is the one hundred and seven steps from my front door to my parking spot. One hundred and seven steps to schlep diaper bag, briefcase, purse, lunch bag and two squirming toddlers every morning at 6:15am in the -25C temperatures, one hundred and seven steps to get said baggage and toddlers back into the house every afternoon. One hundred and seven steps to haul groceries, dryers, luggage and equipment. One hundred and seven steps to guide UPS men and pizza delivery boys along. Oh how I covet a driveway of my own.

I pay well over $200/month in condo fees, part of which is supposed to pay for maintaining those one hundred and seven steps, but this year in particular they've failed miserably. Instead of shovelling the snow they've just been hardpacking it down and throwing buckets of salt and gravel overtop. So during our recent thaw the hundred and seven steps became a giant toddler sucking cesspool of cold slushy water. Of course you can guess what happened when the temperatures plunged again. Now we have to navigate one hundred and seven steps of traitorous ice. Poor Katie lost her battle to stay afoot yesterday and smacked her head hard enough to draw blood (and head wounds, even minor ones, bleed a LOT). Today's snowfall has covered the ice with a layer of extra slippery disguise, it's impossible to tell which areas are hard pack and which are sheer ice.

This too shall pass. Soon we'll be back to dealing with flooding, puddles 5 inches deep and the challenge of keeping two toddlers reasonably dry for one hundred and seven steps. And I'll keep dreaming of a driveway of my own.