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.
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 ...
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.
