Asking for It

If it snows tomorrow where you are, blame me. If it snows here, people will already blame me. I am so enjoying the definitely not 2011 weather we had this time last year when so many of us were doing our Jack London impersonations. It's not Miami, sorry Bobby DelRay, but it's certainly not New England in the first week of January. I know! Let's blame global warming and everyone on that side of the room mock that claim as bad science. On your marks, get set, stop.

I've been off since since the middle of last month. I haven't had this much time away from work that didn't involve people sawing pieces of me off and replacing them in a decade.I think I like it. The days have started to run together and I've lost track of what is when and where. An elderly gent can get used to this gentle and genteel befuddlement.

I don't miss not going to work and I thought I would. I'm a drone who defines himself by what he does (and no, there is no actual industry known as a$$holism, and thanks for the snarkiness) so I always fear I'll drift without something at the center to define me. There's a lot more to drifting than I was led to believe.

I get up not a lot later than I normally do for work (and shall once again a week from now. That's for anyone from work who reads this; you heard their sigh from where you are) and take a brisk (it's a bit crisp around these parts at oh bright early) walk to get a morning paper and then stretch it out a bit to catch the sunrise and watch the mist start to rise off the lawns and roofs. I really love the long golden rays and the way they bathe the landscape.

The sky around here has been so blue for most of this week you can only smile in delight as you get lost staring into it. The days have been great for March and beyond belief for late December/early January. The other day coming back from visiting our son in Mystic, my wife and I drove behind a thin-haired golden girl (probably my age)  in a BMW convertible with a five speed she could barely handle. With temperatures in the middle forties how desperate is the statement you are making when you have the top down (on the car). I was inspired to make a statement of my own, but my wife prevailed upon me to do otherwise. 

This will all end soon enough, I am in no hurry. It's not snowing in Rio as they continue working on the Carnival floats-another parade I'll miss, instead mired among the grey-suited grafters, and it needn't snow here if I get a vote. I should move the snow blower out of the garage and under the backstairs, but I've had so many I should's in my life that I'm not especially keen to jump start the causality daisy-chain.

If you got a sled this Christmas and you haven't had a chance to use it, I'm sorry. Drive north for a couple of hours into the 'real' New England as acquaintances from New Hampshire and Maine keep telling me (where men are men and sheep are nervous, apparently) and enjoy it there. When you're tired and cold, come home; I promise to not be unwelcoming.  Happiness isn't rationed-but sunshine often is. And cheer up-soon enough we'll get a chance to use some of those other words we've learned for snow.  
-bill kenny