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I can handle me some winter

I can handle snow, I guess.

I don't like it much, and I'm annoyed by adults who chirp sunnily about snow days and the old Rosebud they run out when they are deemed non-essential, but I can deal with it. It's only a couple of blocks down our hill to 50 mph traffic and snow-route-running buses. There are two grocery stores we can make it to, half a dozen or so restaurants, and the bar is stocked with good bourbon. We have some nice bottles of red stuck back that need drinking. Netflix is working, and after the latest modem upgrade the high-speed Internet service from Xfinity nee Comcast seems to be operating all right.

(Never mind that what they told me six months ago was just flat wrong, I suppose we're friends now. At least I feel some empathy for the poor people who have to man the customer service lines; I always tell them I understand it's not their personal fault before I put their outfit on blast. Maybe the only thing worse than being beholden to some faceless cable conglomerate that has no problem conveying its disinterest in the picayune tribulations of some snowbound flown-over writer is actually drawing a paycheck from said monster. We all have to do what we have to do to get by, don't we Brenda-somewhere-in-Texas? So just go ahead and fire that refresh signal my way, and if that doesn't work I'll pull the cord on the modem-router and the Apple Time Machine and we can hope that it all cycles around and fixes itself again. But I digress.)

At least we haven't got ice on the trees. Not yet, anyway. And the power has stayed on. And even if the power goes off, we've got gas, which means we can cook and shower. We've got flannel sheets and two dogs who are willing to warm feet and a third who might be coaxed into action if it gets cold enough. (Though Dublin seems pretty comfortable sleeping on the chaise lounge in the room we don't have a name for because it's too big to be called a foyer. From there, through a large window, she commands the front yard, and if anything moves in the driveway or the street beyond she'll let out a sharp little yip just to advertise her vigilance. She reserves her barking for big events like the yak-sized raccoon she clued me into the other night, or the neighbor's cat who even on these snowy nights seems to lurk just beyond her sphere of intimidation. Poor stupid thing just sits there and licks herself, refusing to go inside and have a cocoa or whatever else is on offer.)

I've got some silk long johns I haven't even broken out this year and a fleece hoodie that I don't mind wearing even if I've been informed it is a symbol of solidarity with the sort of folks who take down convenience stores, like the one waiting at the bottom of the north slope of our hill. With Stabilicers strapped to our boots (we've moved on from YakTrax though we do have a couple pairs as backups and recommend them to anyone who wants to walk on ice for moderate distances--Stabilicers cost more but are more rugged, worth it if you plan on walking an eight-mile round trip from the house to the office) so we can go pretty much anywhere. Even to the movies, now that Riverdale has re-opened.

So what I guess I'm trying to do as I sit here on this partly cloudy Tuesday afternoon waiting for what the damnably accurate disaster forecasters say may be to the worst of it to dump upon us Wednesday afternoon, is to make myself believe that it's really not so bad. It's not like London during the Blitz (though the movies, at least, always make that seem exciting to be hunkered down in the Underground with a bunch of well-dressed, fancy-talking strangers sporting bespoke bumbershoots while the city rocks overhead, emerging into a squinting world remade of rubble with the sharp tang of cordite in your nostrils), or even snow-buried Boston, and you do have to remember it made it into the 70s on Valentine's Day.

Which seems so long ago.

But chances are by the time you read this it will all sound kind of silly, and someone will have managed to remove the little Mercedes that slid sideways into the stone sign that marks the entrance to the condos that casual passers-by have to believe are all that's up our secret hill. When we went by the awkwardly situated epitome of German engineering the other day (oh, how far it came from Baden-Wurttemberg, just to suffer such indignity) its former driver was crying softly into her cell phone. telling someone how it wasn't her fault.

And it wasn't. It happens. But ever since I--to quote the bard Jay Hanna Dean--"slud" my black and sexy Eagle Talon into that police car at what must have been four whole miles an hour back in 1996, I limit my driving on Teflon-coated winter roads to just about what's necessary. Which is approximately: Nada, zilch, nope, ain't gonna happen.

At least not until I come to my senses and buy myself a real Jeep with actual doors and a hardtop and winch on the front, at which point I will proceed to drive around the city on snow days and help not one poor fool who has grounded himself in a ditch or spun on a bridge on the grounds that I don't wish to incur any liability. It'll just be tough on them because that's how it is in the blasted Game of Thrones-type season of winter that has currently sat down on us like Charles Barkley at a dairy bar offering free toppings.

Not that I'm complaining.

Because I know things could be worse. I could be in East Texas. Or in Somalia. Or a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas. (Allusion alert: That last part was not thought up by me. I do not own the rights to that song.) I could be facing this rawness all by myself, dipping my cup of soup back from a gurgling cauldron in some train yard. My beard a roughening coal pile, etc. I am not ungrateful for all the stuff that has fallen directly in my path.

But man, I am sick of winter.

pmartin@arkansasonline.com

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www.blooddirtangels.com

Editorial on 03/01/2015

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