DEFIANCE AND SUNGLASSES

DEFIANCE  (noun): [1]  open resistance; bold disobedience  {Synonyms: resistance, opposition, noncompliance, disobedience, insubordination,recalcitrance, subversion, rebellion};  [2]  Sunglasses.



That's right -- SUNGLASSES.

This morning the sun is shining through some random clouds  I have to put on my sunglasses while driving to work, particularly while driving along the section of route 62 that faces east and into the sunrise.  I arrive at work, park my car, and head inside.  

This is the last I will see of the sky for many hours.  

I realize that I have accidentally left my sunglasses on the top of my head.  I usually leave them in the door or in the center console, and I am a little annoyed at myself for bringing them with me.  I pop them carefully into the front pocket of my backpack and hope I remember they are there for the ride home.

At the end of the day after teaching inside the boxed-in room, I prepare to leave.  I have to drive to New Hampshire this afternoon for a hair appointment.  I decide I should probably fish out my sunglasses and get ready for the drive.  (An aside: I arrive at work every morning when the sun is low in the eastern sky and leave when it's setting in the western sky.)  I arrange the sunglasses on the top of my head, lock the door to my classroom, and get ready to zoom home and then zoom north.

Everything is fine for leaving work until I come across a window on my way out the front door.  A window with a view.  A window that isn't just plywood anymore.  I stand there, mouth agape, and say to another teacher, "What the ... Holy fucking shit, REALLY????"

It's snowing.  And it's not just snowing-snowing, it's full-on, near white-out conditions squalling.  

I am going to defy Mother Nature at this point.  I head outside, the sunglasses still on my head, and I'm going to clean off my car so I can get out of here.  I start the car, clear everything off with a large brush, and start driving.  The snow is starting to accumulate.  

The minute I pull into my driveway eight miles from the starting point, the sun comes out.  Mother Nature is defying me; I can feel it deep into my core.  Just as quickly as the storm starts, it stops again.  When I go out to my car later to drive in the last rays of sunshine to my appointment in New Hampshire, I notice there is still water on the lenses of my sunglasses from the snow melting that landed on them earlier.

I quickly wipe the lenses off and continue driving.  You see, I can be like Mother Nature, too.  I can stick my proverbial middle finger up at the world just as easily. It remains sunny for my entire drive north, dry for my entire time at the salon, and clear for the whole way home.  

I possess Winter Defiance right now.  It's not neat, and it's not pretty, but it's damn addicting. 

KNEE-DLES AND OTHER DISASTERS

I am with my friend, and we are on our way to Lowell General for her pre-op blood work.  She will be getting a brand new knee soon.  I'm very excited for her, and I'm even more excited that she is allowing me to accompany her on this odyssey because we have a ridiculous habit of getting ourselves into troubling situations. 

In other words, it's the opportunity of a lifetime.

Before I meet her at her house, I have to get out of my own house.  Of course my phone rings as I attempt to walk out the door.  This makes my early start more of an on-time start.  At the end of the road I realize that I am almost out of gas, so I backtrack several streets and get in line at the gas station.

Well, I sort of get in line. 

There is a woman who needs air in her tires.  She pulls up to the machine, decides it's too cold to get out (it's actually beautiful, in the 40's), backs almost into me as I pull into the station, then parks at the first gas pump.  She proceeds to shut off her car and wave me around her.  I don't know where the frik she thinks I can go, so I cut very close, probably too close, as I eke by and go to a completely different set of pumps. 

Then I wait.  And I wait.  And I wait.  Gas Station Guy, the one on whom I have a secret crush, is not here today.  Today it's Happy Short Guy.  He smiles and nods while he works, even if he only understands about a fifth of what I say.  His English is strong enough in the conventional way, but I doubt he understands slang and idioms very well, and he certainly has zero tolerance for hyperbole.

Eventually Air Pump Woman and Happy Short Guy get her car where it needs to be, and then he comes over to pump my gas.  By the time it is all said and done, it takes me twelve minutes to make a four-minute pit stop.  Now I am officially late.  I text my friend just before I pay: "@ gas, be right thr" or something similarly inspirational.

Once I make it across town to her place, we start on the road to Lowell.  We intend to cut through the back way, but the roads are still snow-covered from the storm the day before, the storm that was supposed to be a dusting but turned into shovel-worthy inches of white shit.  We abandon our back road plans and head to the main connecting street where there are people. 

No, not in cars.  People.  Jogging.  Pushing baby carriages.  In.  The.  Street.

My friend and I cannot possibly fathom how jogging in the slush-filled, unplowed roads can be a brightly-thought-out endeavor.  But truly the woman with the baby carriage is the biggest of all the idiots.  She and her baby are completely exposed to the dangerous slipping and the constant waves of goopy melting snow emanating from every vehicle that passes.  Obviously these are not intelligent people.

No sooner do we splash Jogger Dudes and Stroller Ma when the traffic in front of us careens to a halt.  Some kind of work truck has parked its ass in the middle of River Road in Tewksbury, right smack in front of the golf course.  So, we wait.  And we wait some more.  And we even wait longer than that.  It's not that we cannot go if we really need to, it's that the cop who is "directing traffic" is standing in the street sort of waving the other traffic by, sort of sipping on his coffee, and sort of grabbing his crotch.  Unless we start waving donuts out the window, I doubt very much that this will be a timely event.  I am also wondering if I am going to be arrested as I am sorely tempted to start screaming profanities out the window.

After about eight minutes of this, we are finally waved by, and the police officer stands in the road.  I know what you're thinking, but he honestly is standing in the only open passing lane.  I drive a little too close to him, give him a splash on the drive through, and then speed away because my friend has suddenly turned into me.  She swears at the cop through the rolled-up windows as we drive by.  I can just imagine this conversation should he decide to report me --

ME:  But, officer, we are in a hurry.  My friend has to get to the hospital!

HE:  Pull over, Bitch, I'm gonna write you up a ticket.

ME:  Wait!  What did I do?

HE:  Your friend called me a fat, lazy asshole.

ME:  Shit.  How much is the ticket?

HE:  One hundred bucks, Bucko.

FRIEND:  Liar!  I called you a balding, megaton buttfuck!

HE:  Now it's two hundred dollars, Girlie.

ME:  Um … can I see what's behind door #3?

We arrive at Lowell General and discover, amazingly enough, a nearly front-row parking space.  We are about twenty feet from the front door.  I assume this means that we will come out to a ticket; it does seem to be my day.  The first thing my friend does is register for her appointment, and she is handed a pager.  I feel like I'm at Panera waiting for my order to come up.  While my friend moves to another line, I sit down away from everyone else.  The lobby is huge, and it is the central location off of which are corridors and offices for radiology and the lab and, frighteningly enough, the cast room.  This means broken bones must be big business if the hospital has created an entire office just to put casts on.  I can imagine that dinner time conversation --

NON-DOC:  So, Sweetie, how did you spend your day?

DOC:  How the hell do you think I spent it?  I put on forty-seven wrist casts, twenty-nine leg casts, and I sat on a hypodermic needle full of Novocaine.  My left ass cheek slept the entire day while I worked the right ass cheek clear off.

NON-DOC:  Well, honey, those are the breaks… (Spouse remembers nothing more after chair comes flying towards face.  Wakes up later being completely covered in plaster ala Fortunado in Cask of Amontillado.)

There are some strange people here in the waiting area today, but arguably not as strange as those one might find at Lowell's less fancy cousin of the dirty-city-underbelly, Lawrence General.  There are two random women, one wearing pajama pants with a giant cast on her leg (See?  He's keeping plenty busy in there.), and the other carrying a giant pocketbook.  My friend wonders what the woman might possibly keep inside. 

"Depends," I answer.

"Depends on what?"  she asks. 

"Depends, like diapers for adults.  Explains the extra-absorbent purse."

Soon we spy two older women, both stylish and in good humor.  My friend and I decide that we're looking into mirrors of the future, and that someday soon, we will be these ladies -- dressed for comfort and fun, properly accessorized, and totally drop-dead beautiful.  They gab amicably then resort to laughter.  We quietly confer and decide:  We want to be them in a few years.

After a short wait, my friend begins her pre-op prep work, which means she will donate a few vials of blood, undergo a chest x-ray, have an EKG, talk to the nurse and the anesthesiologist, get her nostril swabbed, and undergo yet another pregnancy test, as if the Pope has been in town since the one she took last week for a different appointment connected to the same operation.  The only problem she encounters (other than the fact that the technicians forget the nostril swab, so when they remember it, they are so flustered that they take the sample they need from deep inside my pal's cranium) is with the paperwork.

Oh, yes, the stuff that makes the insurance companies go 'round.

The paperwork is all screwed up.  The hospital is trying to bill the wrong insurance, and they have my friend's father listed as her spouse.  Now, this may just be some sort of silly clerical error, but the implications about her father-spouse are downright Appalachian.  My friend insists that the nurse make the corrections.  The nurse doesn't want to make corrections.  She'll make them later.  Wrong, my friend insists, you'll make them now.  If only I'd gone over to the little desk with them both, we wouldn't be in this predicament now.  I could assure this hardy nurse that she is no match for my friend.  My friend has a formidable mother; my friend has been raised by the Master.  Really, Nurse Lady, correct the paperwork now while you still have a skin on your hide, if you have an ounce of survival instinct anywhere in your body.

Two and a half hours and four crossword puzzles later, we are done and ready to leave.  A potty break is in order, so we make the pit stop and wash our hands.  And dry them.  I said, and we dry …and … we … I said, dry … Damnit.  The hand dryer, the kind where you insert your sopping wet hands and the machine magically dries your palms and fingers while you stand there, will not start for me.  It works fine for my friend, but not for me.  I pull my hands away, and the dryer starts.  I reinsert my hands quickly, and the dryer shuts down again.  Pull away - it goes on.  Hands in - it goes off.  Out, on.  In, off.  Out, on.  In, off.  I finally shake my dripping fingers into oblivion and exit the place, determined to make it to my car without further incident.  Success!

We run a few errands and decide that we're starving.  Honestly, our growling stomachs give us away, and we head to the luncheon specials at Le Chen's.  I love that place because I always get two meals out of the sweet and sour chicken.  When I go to pack the leftover food up, the waiter seems annoyed that I only ate two pieces of chicken.  I am reasonably sure I ate more.  I did have soup and rice and tea, so maybe I am full, but the guy counts the pieces of chicken and says, "No.  Eight pieces.  You ate two or we make mistake…"

Shit.  Now he's going to bogart my leftovers because he believes the kitchen gave me an extra piece of chicken.  Damnation.  I shouldn't have said anything.  I'll know better next time.  While I wait for my possibly pilfered leftovers to come back out, I eat my fortune cookie then unfurl the slip of paper I rescue from its center.

Fortune sides with him who dares.

I could apply this to the Big Picture of life, but I take it to mean, Since you dared to grab this fortune cookie first out of the two, here is your fortune.

Life is so much easier when you cut down on the expectations.  Considering our crazy-ass adventures in Lowell, that's all the daring I care to do for one day.  I know my friend will dream of smacking me when she reads this, but I am very excited for her knee surgery.  First of all, it will be great when she has recovered enough to walk the beach with me again.  And secondly, we have some of the best adventures.  I can't wait to see what's out there for us after her knee replacement. 

After all, fortune has already sided with us, right?

SIBERIA -- YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET

In connection with yesterday's blog, I have had enough of this winter crap.  I don't mind the freezing Siberian wind chill.  I don't mind the constant snow.  However, I am sick to death of the two of them together, all week, every week, week in and week out.

So today I decide to wear a dress to work.  I wear nylons and low-heeled pumps and a light spring sweater.  My dress is a chevron pattern with brown and orange ... and yellow.  Yellow, like the sun that I never see between my now-windowless classroom and the snowy, dreary days.

Strangely enough, the guy in the room next to me, whose windows have also been boarded up, wears yellow today.  He wears a pale yellow button-down shirt with a yellow striped tie. 

The two of us look like ads for April. 

I don't care that it's 16 degrees out when I leave the house.  I don't care that I have to haul the garbage to the end of the driveway before putting stockings on so my bare legs are exposed to the wind chills.  I don't care that I have to leave the warmed-up car to go in to the post office and mail my nephew's gift this morning.  I don't care that the walk from my parking space to the front door of the school is like entering the tundra amidst swirling sand and salt and errant snow.

I'm wearing a spring dress and a spring sweater and a coat more appropriate for temperatures thirty degrees warmer than it is right now.  Mother Nature dared to mock me yesterday?  Lady, I am mocking you right back today.  I can shiver just as much in this get-up I'm wearing as I can with long pants, warm socks, and a ski parka. 

I've had enough of this winter crap.  Siberia?  You ain't seen nothing yet.
 

IT'S NOT NICE TO FOOL MOTHER NATURE ... OR IS IT?

Okay, Bitch, it is on.  It is soooo on. You wanna play with me, Mother Nature?  Do you truly wanna play this game ... with me?

I'm the one who's trying to stay cheery.  I'm the one saying, "Oh, Polar Vortex plus constant snow storms equals the best of New England.  Right?  Ha ha ha ha..."  I've got your back, Mother Nature.  When everyone else is swearing at you and ratting you out on the local news, who keeps saying this is the way life should be?  Me, you stupid seasonal hag.  ME.
 
But, Bitch, you have just pushed my final button.  You hear me?  I said, "Do you hear me?!"

A little over a week ago, the day my daughter moved and I had to bring her cat to the new place, you waited until I had the cat and her carrier strapped into the seat belt.  You waited for me to get into the driver's seat and put on my own seat belt.  And then ... you make it start snowing.  Whimsical flakes at first, but then you brought out the big guns.  By the time I drove back from New Hampshire, the roads were slippery and dangerous. 

Then in the middle of a lacrosse scrimmage, you opened up the skies and let it rain, sleet, and snow.  I drove home in near-whiteout conditions, white knuckled, and praying to the Gods of All-Wheel Traction that I would make it home alive in under three hours (it's a 35-mile drive).

I have done all the shoveling.  I have spent hours and hours out there, even when you ramped up the rain on top of the fresh snow, even when it was so icy that I couldn't stand up to shovel without sliding down the driveway and into the street like Buster Keaton in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

All the while I have defended you to your detractors.  Then Monday comes, and what do you do?  You wait until I leave a meeting after school, you wait until I am on my way to the university for a grad class, you wait until I am safely in my car and strapped in for the ride to Salem, and then ... and then ... and then ...

You drop snow flurries on me.  Are you even serious right now?

Listen, Bitch, we're over.  You understand?  Done.  Kaput.  And do you know why?  Because you are mocking me.  You are mocking me, and I am damn well aware of it.  Oh, don't even.  I saw what you did today.  I saw how it snowed and snowed the whole way there and how it snowed and the wind whipped so strongly that I almost fell down walking from the lot to Meier Hall.  That's right, you almost knocked me over with the same breezy gusto you would employ to blow me across iced-over Heaton's pond when I weighed half as much as I do now. 

But that's not what truly made me snap, was it?  You know exactly what you did to mock me today.  You waited until I was in the school building, the farthest one from the commuter parking lot, after I had been tossed around and piddled on ... AND THEN THE SUN CAME OUT as I watched from a second-floor window.  The damn sun.

So, Mother Nature, the next time you need someone to stand up for you and say, "Oh, this is lovely weather we're having this time of year," even when it's a damn blizzard outside, do NOT come knocking on my door.  We are soooo over.

Until spring.  When the warm spring sunny days roll in, we can be friends again.  But, until then, you, Mother Nature, can flipping bite me.  We are done.

L IS FOR TRIVIA ... LOSERS

Apparently my friends and I are not gluttonous enough to play trivia at the local watering hole.  Who knew?  Surely we did not.

We have been going to trivia at Uno's many Sundays for a couple of years now, and we used to do pretty well.  Admittedly we have some stinker weeks, like last week where the most important piece of information to come out of our wooden booth was that my friend's daughter has a "thing" for former (and long-dead) president Rutherford B. Hayes.

But tonight we kick butt.  We totally trash the half-time and picture rounds and get many of the regular questions right.  So how is it that our score, even though it is reasonably high, puts us in LAST place?

We look around.  Our little group of four is merrily drinking beer, soda, water, and coffee.  We are eating salads and chicken wings.  We even answer a question so obscure that we earn five extra Mulligan points.  And this is the problem.  We are not drinking enough and we are eating things that are not ridiculously bad for us. 

We are also the smallest group there.  Every other team has five, six, even more people working with the questions.  It's not that this makes them collectively more intelligent than we are, although there may be some truth in that.  It's because bonus points are awarded for certain beers and for desserts.  Every team but ours is sucking down the brews and buttercream faster and in greater quantities than any sane human might ever deem sensible.  Six people at a table drinking four beers each and having desserts could easily garner a team thirty additional points.

It seems that our trivia night out has turned into less of what we know and more of how far we can stretch our kidneys, livers, and stomachs.  It's not that we don't have fun -- We are like cats; we could have fun in paper bags and empty boxes because we're just that kind of people.  It's just … not about knowledge anymore.  It's less about fun rivalries and competing minutiae and dueling brain cells, and more about bellying up to the bar faster and with greater gusto than the others.

I half-jokingly suggested that we should just meet at someone's house and play Trivial Pursuit because the whole concept of TRIVIA has evolved into an elaborate game of Caps.  But the truth of it is that I enjoy the friends I see at trivia along with the questions and answers part of it.  Friendly competition is great!  Friendly drinking it great!  Friendly dessert-eating is great!  Mixing them all together so the only way to win is to be drunk and in sugar-shock?  Maybe not such a wise idea.

I guess it's okay to be too un-gluttonous to win at trivia.  At least we all know that we're intelligent enough in a random kind of way to earn some honest game points, and that we won't be drunk-driving to get home after the game… while holding up the "L is for Loser" sign on our own foreheads.

SATURDAY HAIKU FOR THE FUN OF IT

Saturday is to winter what chocolate is to menopausal women -- the logical answer to the question "How was the weather yesterday?"

After days ... weeks, even ... the sun comes out, stays out, and creates a wonderful day right smack in the midst of winter.

I know I've done the Haiku thing before, but here it is -- Haiku for my Saturday.

Try to leave early,
The car is covered in ice
It needs to warm up.

There is much black ice
The driveway is dangerous --
Almost fall on ass.

Lacrosse starts today:
"Hey, Mom, bring my goalie gloves --
Let's give them away!"

In the car, heat cranks
Warm on feet - Windows open
To let some air in.

Baked tons of cookies--
Toll House and peanut butter
Cookies for the team.

Sun is out, no wind:
The greatest lacrosse weather
To stand on the field.

After the scrimmage
We feed the kids like gluttons
And gorge them with sweets.

When it's all over
We've had a day in the sun:
Great lacrosse and friends!

Like an idiot
Get a sunburn on my face--
Rest of me still pale.

Thank you for warm days
Otherwise winter would drive
Me to kill myself.

HOW I SPENT MOST OF MY BREAK

 My school break is almost over, and I haven't done any of the correcting I brought home with me.  I've done tons of shoveling, and by tons I really mean ... well ... tons.  I spent most of my break shoveling.

Oh, I've worked my tail off on my grad school work, writing the blog, getting organized, printing stuff out.  I even wrote an entire essay for this week's grad class only to discover that I've probably done the assignment completely incorrectly and have to start all over again.

If it hadn't been for the hours and hours and hours of shoveling I've done since the days before the break and all the way through, I may have gotten more done.  My house looks like hoarders live here. I have thesis paperwork in different piles all over the office (spare bedroom).

But the countdown is on.  I am on my way to lacrosse Saturday morning, and I should probably put Sunday aside to do work I was supposed to do a week ago.  Here's the thing, though.  I don't have a moment's regret about how I spent my time.  My daughter moved, I cat-sat, I went to trivia with friends, I went to lunch with other friends, I spent a couple of days hanging out with yet another friend, and I shoveled.  I shoveled the Thursday before break, Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights.  Chances are I'll shovel again before I step one toe inside that school again on Monday.

I'm not worried, though.  If it snows, I have plenty to keep me busy until it's time to move my car and clear the snow off of it.  That "plenty to do"?

I spent most of my break shoveling... (Stop me if you've heard this one before.)

LACROSSE MY HEART MOTHER NATURE SUCKS

I'm cold. 

No, this isn't a general complaint about New England winter.  This is a specific lament.  You see, my son's lacrosse coach has turned into a crackerjack meteorologist, and it's starting to get a little creepy.  And cold. 

Coach schedules two scrimmages for last Saturday.  Unfortunately, it decides to snow.  Coach reschedules the scrimmages for Tuesday afternoon.  Unfortunately, it decides to snow.  Coach reschedules again for Wednesday evening.  Just as I am leaving the house to drive to the game, I get an email and a phone call -- Scrimmage cancelled due to … you guessed it:  Snow.

Coach tries one more time with Thursday evening.  After all, Thursday is what the weather experts have been calling "the pick of the week."  It's in the 40's, about 30 degrees warmer than it has been lately, and it's a beautiful pre-spring afternoon and early evening.  The game starts, we all comment about how warm it is,  and it appears that tonight just maybe Mother Nature won't shit all over us.

Until half-time.  At half-time, Mother Nature shits all over us.

With sudden ferocity the temperature drops markedly.  The Arctic wind kicks up and barrels across the field.  Then the rain comes.  It's a fine mist at first, then a steady drizzle, then giant, ice-laced, stinging daggers of wetness.  The pounding droplets and the raging wind render all umbrellas useless, almost comical.  By the time the second half of the game starts, we are all well on our way to being soaked through.  I see my son's girlfriend, who has given up and is returning to her dorm.  She is a far, far brighter girl than we adults; she has the good sense to get out of the freezing rain.

For some reason, tonight the four referees, who must be in training because they throw flags and blow whistles without consistency or agreement, cannot allow the game to go more than forty seconds without stop-time.  We know this because we start keeping track.  The last quarter of the game, scheduled for fifteen minutes, stretches twice that long.  The last five minutes alone take up almost half of that extended time.   By now it is snowing big, fat, juicy, icy snowflakes, and the wind blows them directly into our faces.  I am quite sure that any eye make-up I put on earlier is now melting down my face and freezing into bizarre black icicles along my cheekbones.  (After a mirror check before leaving the parking lot, this new look is confirmed.)

I am somewhat concerned about driving home since it has been snow-sleeting for an hour already, but I know New Hampshire takes great care of their roads, especially their highways, during adverse weather conditions.  I lived in New Hampshire for a long time.  I even lived there several times.  These are facts I know.  During and right after storms, it's fun to drive north and see exactly where the plowing line stops -- it's at the state line: New Hampshire roads are pristine while Massachusetts roads are clogged with snow banks, slush, and general gunk.

Until Saturday and again Thursday.

On Saturday, after it has been snowing for three hours, no plows come by and I watch a car spin out into a snow bank while leaving my daughter's new place in Londonderry.  On Thursday night, after it has been snowing for over an hour, no plows come by, no lanes are visible on the snow-covered tar, and the snow is coming at the windshield like hyperspace mode in Star Wars.  I am crawling along the interstate at paces of twenty to forty miles per hour.  I think this lack of plowing is certainly the most dangerous thing I'll see, but I will be wrong.

The most dangerous thing I see happens around exit #5, which means I still have a long way to go before I'm home safely.  Around exit #5, two tractor-trailers come barreling by on the left to pass the slower line of cars.  The problem is the person driving in front of me cannot see his lane and probably assumes that all is well as he drifts nonchalantly into the left lane… where there is a tractor-trailer whizzing by. 

The car does what basically amounts to a movie stunt -- It slides partially under the eighteen-wheeler, both vehicles decelerate slightly, and the little car in front of me slides back without incident as both vehicles continue down the road.

I, on the other hand, shit my pants.

I am still driving along, but now one palm is tightly fisted on the steering wheel while the other covers my mouth to stifle a blood-curdling scream.  I take my foot off the gas, pump the brakes, and start praying to any and every god in the universe.  I swear this is the truth exactly as it happens.  Well, maybe not the scream part because that was actually a sharp inhalation of breath followed by a silent, gaping, mock scream.  It is the kind of scream that one might see in a death masque.  Everything else I am telling you is the honest real way it happened.  The car slipped under a bit, rode that way for a fraction of a second, then slipped back out again.

It takes me over an hour to drive the thirty-five or so miles that it is from the university to my driveway.  I decide that going slowly but steadily is the way for me.  It isn't until I hit the Massachusetts state border that the snow has returned to sleet and the roads are passable, a bit slippery, but nothing like the untreated, unplowed, unsalted, and unsanded roads of its northern cousin state.

When I finally get home, I peel off the layers of dripping wet clothing.  My skin underneath and especially my calves are bright red and very cold to the touch.  I am frozen like an ice cube, colder than I have been for a long time.  So cold, in fact, that I am starting to hallucinate about Walt Disney -- as he is now, stuck in liquid nitrogen-fueled, frozen suspended animation.

But I am home.  I'm cold, but I'm home.  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to stand on the heating vent and thaw out.  By the way:  NEXT LACROSSE SCRIMMAGE IS SCHEDULED FOR SATURDAY MORNING.  Plan your activities around the snow that will surely be coming.

IT'S THE OLYMPICS, DAMNIT

What the hell is with the Olympics?

First of all, I can't find a schedule that doesn't have repeating broadcasts of previously shown events, all of which say "live."  How can the Finland-Russia men's hockey game be live ... twice ... in the same day?  Secondly, why do I have to find events worth watching by playing Where's Waldo with my remote?

Look, I understand the whole prime-time crap.  I fully expect that.  But why is NBC showing the same thing on three different channels off and on during the day, especially since they're going to cherry-pick anyway what to show at night?

If NBC bought the rights to the Olympics, then NBC should be showing the Olympics.  Live.  Period.

I don't want to have to determine if the sports will be on CNBC or NBCSports or NBC or USA Network.  That's right, USA Network, home of the repeats, home of the NCIS marathons and Law and Order SVU marathons, etc.  Just show the damn Olympics on NBC and don't worry that people might miss their soap opera for two weeks.  Soap operas have all but died, anyway, as well they should.  Or broadcast your soap on USA Network for two weeks.

I miss Jim McKay.  I miss the Olympics being broadcast live as they happened on a regular network channel that anyone could see.  If the network broadcasting the events don't take the whole thing seriously, how do they expect their viewers to, or, worse, their paying sponsors?

But for the love of gawd, if you buy the damn rights to the damn Olympics, you should show the damn sports events as they damn-well happen.  Damnit.

SNOW STORM NEWS FLASH!

NEWS FLASH!  It's snowing.

And thank goodness it is because I have almost completely forgotten what snow looks like since it hasn't snowed since Saturday and then, before that, Thursday.  If it weren't snowing out, I might be mistaken into thinking spring is coming since everything is coated with white.

It continues snowing until after dark.  This is not supposed to happen; it is supposed to stop by 5:00 p.m.  It is now closer to 7:00 p.m.  The snow accumulates three or four inches beyond what is anticipated.  Yay.  I can totally feel Mother Nature's love.  I head out to shovel my driveway.  Again.

NEWS FLASH!  There is no place to put the snow anymore.

The pick-up truck that plows my street hasn't actually "plowed" in the last two storms.  I decide the only place to put the snow from my driveway is into the newly and badly formed middle-of-the-street snow bank created by the plow guy who doesn't know how to plow.  Dragging the snow to the other side of the street means cleaning up the road, as well.  One of the other tenants and I start clearing out by pouring our snow onto these snow banks across from the double driveway. 

We are deep into the work and about 30% done when we hear the snowblower start.  I immediately decide if our driveways aren't cleared, I will knock on the landlords' door to beg for mercy.  Before I can make it to their door, the eldest of the landlord's boys appears with the snowblower from behind the tall mounds of glistening white. 

Quickly and methodically I start dumping all the snow from my two cars right where I suspect the young man will be plowing.  Then I jump in the cars (one at a time, obviously), bomb over the snow I've yet to shovel, and move both cars out of the driveway. 

Here!  It's empty!  It's ready!  Come blow snow! 

The job of snowblowing turns out to be very tricky because there is still no place to put the snow and there is a thick layer of ice underneath everything.  Several slips-and-slides later, we are done shoveling and the boy is done with the machine. 

Mother Nature plays a trick on us that the 3-5 inches of snow actually turns into 8-10 inches of snow.  However, I have the last laugh this time, Mother Dearest:  Snow is cleared from my walkway and driveway in less than 2.5 hours this time … more like about 75 minutes. 

NEWS FLASH!  Mother Nature … can bite ME this time.

THE SNOWMAN MELT-ETH

Damn, the driving is pretty bad in some areas still.  I understand that it snowed and rained and was horrible on Thursday and that it snowed again on Saturday.  I also understand that we have Arctic winds blowing snow and garbage cans and small dogs all over the place.  But seriously.  Parts of my street, which is about 100 yards long, remain unplowed.  My friend's street in nearby Methuen, though "plowed," is only passable via bobsled or luge; don't even attempt to turn the wheel nor brake for children -- someone's gonna die on the packed-down snow and ice. 

My driveway and walkway have been doing that melt-freeze-melt-freeze routine for days.  When I go in search of salt to put down, I am told that store after store is out.  When I mention the state of our streets (horrible), I am told that many towns have run low or run out of sand and salt.

Run out?  No stores carry Icy Melt?  No towns have re-ordered sand and salt for the streets?   

Are you trying to kill me?

By noontime today we are due to be back into the thick of things snow-wise.  If the plows don't come by at some point, whatever is left of my shrinking street will be completely impassable for all but sleds.  If it doesn't involve massive overtime or double-time, it doesn't get cleared.  Without rock salt, my walkway and driveway will turn into more snow on top of ice on top of snow.

On a positive note, it does stay lighter longer (I don't close my blinds until 5:30) and I have heard some birds during the day, both signs that spring is coming.  We should only have to dig out about twelve more times this year.  Right?

Let the countdown begin!

THINGS THAT SUCK

Trivia sucks.

I mean, I am a reasonably intelligent woman, and so are the people on my trivia team.  We usually do pretty well, but tonight ... well, tonight sucks.

I have to be honest, and I know this sounds cruel to some people, but truly, I do not give one iota of sympathy that Philip Seymour Hoffman is dead.  A grown man, a seemingly talented man, an arguably intelligent man, dies of a heroin overdose, and suddenly we have entire sections of trivia dedicated to him?  I don't know the answers to any of the trivia associated with this person, and neither does my team.  It's the first round, and already we suck.

But tonight isn't really about trivia.  Tonight is about getting out and getting away.  We have all been stuck inside way too much lately with the continuous blasts of snow that keep hitting the northeast.  There's another round due Tuesday, which will make three good-sized storms in less than seven days.

Yes, we live in New England, so we should get over this whole snow thing. However, this whole snow thing is a lot like Philip Seymour Hoffman's death -- ridiculously tragic for no apparent reason.  Personally, I look forward to both news stories (snow and Hoffman) disappearing this winter.

Come on, Spring!

ONCE UPON A TIME ... THE END

Daughter and her hubby move to their first home today.  In exchange for not having to move too much stuff, I offer to cat-sit their indoor cat so the little dickens doesn't escape in all the chaos.  The last time I did this, Boogie was just a kitten, and I lost her at one point when she jumped her bad little self onto the counter and hid behind the blender.  I do not intend to lose her today.

I haven't been feeling all that great lately between bronchitis and not sleeping and general mid-winter malaise, so I let my son-in-law drop Boogie here in the morning.  We hang out, not doing too much.  She moves around in her carrier a few times, even though both ends are unzipped.  I think that she thinks I'm the lazy one.  I am either attached to the computer chair, which is near her, or sitting on the sofa next to her.  She's probably calculating how many places she can coerce me into sitting so that she doesn't have to break a sweat.

I set her up, anyway, complete with a giant litter box (leftover from my enormously hefty now-dead cat, but with clean litter inside) and fresh water and fresh food.  I even break out some of the leftover cat toys.  She is aloof, like any excellent cat can be, but continues to let me pet her while sniffing at my hand.  I am cautious -- my last cat liked to pretend it enjoyed being petted until it didn't enjoy being petted and would bite me viciously and without compunction.

I make sure Boogie is secure in her carrier while I drag out to my car all the junk my daughter left in my cellar.  Some of it's not junk -- towels and things.  But I eventually need to move.  At some point I'll be a completely empty nester, not just the college parent empty nester, and I might want to move someplace different where there isn't a cellar for piling random stuff we've all accumulated.  First her stuff, then my two sons' stuff will go, then my extra junk will go.  For now, though, one child at a time.  Once the car is packed, I secure Boogie's carrier with the seat belt, and we're off.  Nothing could possibly go ...

Wait.  Wait a damn minute.  What the frik is that?  Is that ... goddamnit, it's starting to snow.  Are you even serious right now?  I have a car packed to its gills, an aloof cat, and a thirty minute drive there and thirty minutes home again, not to mention that I want to visit for a while and see the new place, and now ... it's snowing?  Again?  Still?  This is supposed to be a South Shore and the Islands Storm.  This is supposed to be an After Five P.M. Storm.  You ... frigging ... bastard.  Mother Nature's timing sucks.

I get to the new place in New Hampshire with a minimal of difficulty, but it's snowing pretty steadily at this point.  Thankfully, the roads are still warm enough that it's not accumulating yet.  I drop off the cat, unload the car, and hang out for a little while.  I am not there too long when we decide to let Boogie roam her new house.  She tentatively edges down the stairs from the bedroom where she has been relegated while people finish bringing things upstairs from the garage.  I take her picture as she comes down to check things out, and her eyes flash like laser beams.  Apparently this is why she doesn't want to come too far out of her carrier at my house -- she is afraid her superpowers will destroy my universe.

Over an hour later I look out and notice that not only is the snow sticking to my car, it's sticking to damn-near everything.  I have things to do, and I don't really feel like taking an extra hour to drive home because I am too lazy to get off my rear-end and get moving, so I hit the road.

Well, I almost hit the road.  I am driving out of the street very slowly because I cannot tell where the "children at play" speed bumps are hidden.  I tap the brakes and ... nothing.  Oh, they make that loud locked-up groaning noise, but I have hit the icy snowy spot and I am sliding right on through that stop sign and into the street.  Lucky for me the first car in line coming at me is turning at another side street.  I am able to avoid a collision.

Unlucky for the third car behind the turner, though, because someone is not paying attention and goes sliding sideways and into a giant snowbank.  The car is stuck there.  I briefly think about being a Good Samaritan and helping out.  Briefly.  I decide that even fifteen minutes of time could put me further into the driving danger zone, and I sneak out completely into the road and start crawling behind other now-cautious drivers toward the highway.  Sorry if that is you I leave in the snowbank, but your car didn't seem any worse for the wear, and there's a pizza joint right there if you need to wait somewhere for AAA.  You're probably in better shape than I am.

The highway isn't too bad, once I reach it, but the slushy crap being spewed from truck tires in front of me makes for some nasty moments of driving, until I hit the Massachusetts border.  There isn't anything much to report here.  Oh, sure, it's snowing to beat the band, but nothing is sticking on the roads yet, even though it has been snowing here since I left my house.  I get home without further incident, park my car, and hunker down for the three or so inches of snow my area is due from a storm that isn't supposed to be dumping as much in Southern New Hampshire as I have already seen.  I check the weather maps.  Surely these must be snow showers, and the areas in Boston and south should be ...

Wait.  Wait a damn minute.  What the frik is that?  Is that ... goddamnit.  One weather map now has my area in six to eight inches of snow.  What the holy hell is going on?  Is it really this damn difficult to forecast the weather with today's technology?  Look, folks -- northeastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire are not the South Shore.  Get with the program!

I'll tell you what.  I can be a meteorologist.  Put me on camera.  Pay me their salaries.  I'm telling you, I can do this job, and so can you.  Ready?  Get up from your computer, walk to the door, open that same door, look outside, and tell me what it's doing.  It's okay.  I'll just hang out here until you do it.

Done?  Really?

What do you see?  I see snow.  I see accumulating snow.  My friend in Boston, you know, the place that is supposed to be under blizzard conditions?  "It's barely snowing here," she reports.  (She's one of my mobile reporters, just like a real news station.  Watch out for thunder snow, Tin Cambridge.  If you see Jim Cantore, run fast the other way.)  Later on they should get snow, but right now this great "southern New England storm" is way too far north to be labeled a "southern New England storm."


After all of this excitement, I remember that I don't feel all that well and hunker down on the couch.  I turn on the 6:00 p.m. news, which, of course, begins with a weather report.  Thank goodness I'm under covers, because once I see the new snow prediction totals that weren't there this morning,it makes me tired.  A half hour later I wake up on the sofa without any recollection as to falling asleep.  Yup, from cat-sitting, to moving stuff, to seeing daughter's new home, to being laser-beamed by the cat, to the white-knuckle drive back to my home state, to being snookered by the meteorologists (yet again), I am plain tuckered out.

I really don't have a point to this post.  Just free-associating, so if you're looking for any kind of connected ending, you'll be disappointed.  Just pretend my story today is like the snow -- telling you one thing and ending somewhere completely different.  So ... Once upon a time there was a cat, some snow, and incorrect weather maps.  The end. 

SLEEPITIS

Ever since I was a kid, I've had trouble sleeping.  Not trouble falling asleep.  I can fall sleep anywhere, anytime.  I've dozed off at the computer, in school at my desk, on trains, waiting in parking lots for children to get out of practices, and in the dentist chair while having teeth drilled.  I have even napped at stop lights (this is highly dangerous - I do not condone this practice … but sometimes … it just happens).  Nope, no problem whatsoever nodding off. 

My problem is staying asleep. 

I used to get up in the middle of the night, wide awake, and stay awake for long periods of time before dozing back off.  This started around age ten, and I thought there was something wrong with me.  Turns out this is just my sleep pattern.  Some nights are more active than others.  But Thursday night into Friday is the worst it has been in a very long time.

After all, I should be flipping exhausted. 

I shovel the heavy snow in my driveway for two and a half hours straight.  Snow showers turn to sleet then turn to rain, and I am soaked and utterly fried when I finish.  I should be out cold by 9:00 p.m.  Instead, I am tossing at midnight, and later.  The last time I remember seeing on the digital clock is 12:48.  Then I awaken at 1:30.  Toss toss toss toss.  Finally doze back off to awaken at 2:30.  Toss toss toss toss.  Then again at 3:30.  Toss and repeat.  Then again at 4:30.  Toss and repeat.  The alarm finally goes off at 5:15.  I have managed to piece together about three hours of constantly interrupted and useless sleep. 

This totally sucks.

At lunch I tell my lack-of-sleep story and am surprised to discover I am not the only one who had a terrible night's sleep.  Later, when I finally get to social media, I discover several of my friends have also suffered a sleepless night, one friend tossing and turning as late as 6:00 a.m.  What shocks me even more is that all of the sleep-deprived are on the east coast and suffered through the huge storm.

Hmmmmm.  I am no scientist (just ask any of my unfortunate junior or senior high school lab partners, especially those from chemistry class … boom), but is it possible that barometric changes from the multi-phased storm disrupted our sleep patterns?  Further research reveals that it is a full moon.  I always have strange dreams and weird sleep patterns during the moon's fullest phase.  Is it possible that this full moon is wreaking havoc on brain waves?  How is it that so many people have a terrible night's sleep, if they sleep at all, on the same date and time? 

I'm absolutely strung out sleep-wise, but I am afraid to lie down, wary that I will have another semi-sleepless night, or, worse, I will have a night full of strange, nightmarish dreams that I often suspect belong to someone else. 

Sleep shouldn't be this complicated.  It should be like propofol sleep.  Well, not in a Michael Jackson propofol sleep way.  That would be a little too permanent.  More like in a having-exploratory-surgery kind of way.  Dreamless, restorative sleep.

As a matter of record, I have dozed off no less than five times while writing this blog entry.  I hope I haven't used up my chances to get on a good night's sleep.  Besides, there's another storm steaming at us tomorrow night, but the full moon will be waning by then.  Perfect astronomical conditions to sleep for maybe five hours. 

That would be great for a change.