“There’s a time for streetwalking.” I actually said that to strangers passing in the road, and they smiled. Well, streetwalking is keeping me upright. The weather still swings, snow, then a melt, frigid, then ice, snow, melt, frigid, ice, I should write a tune for my disenchanted chant. The cleanest walks become the most treacherous as they layer themselves with black ice, and only those with a layer of snow are safe for me to use.

Every store was out of street salt the other day, several other days in fact. And table salt didn’t do the trick, the grain’s too fine. I had wanted to buy some and walk through ShoreWood, like Hansel and Gretel, keeping track of my tracks as I created traction. Until now I’ve always used sand, feels like it’s harmless if it ends up on the shoreline. And I’m not anxious to live near a great salt lake.

If there’s too much traffic, I do use sidewalks, when I can find a way to reach them. Yesterday iciness on sidewalks surprised me several times, but I managed to save myself from hitting bottom.

Later: I went back to Pick ‘n Save. They finally had salt in 20-pound bags. Then I saw it was four-ingredient salt, sodium chloride the last ingredient, and I wondered about the safety of the other three. I didn’t have to wonder long. If I have to keep it out of reach of children, how can I put it on the sidewalk? Not only that, little kids think snow looks like ice cream, and they love to lick. The easiest way to stop my younger grandkids is to remind them about what dogs do in snow.