A Weather-Related Lamentation

Oh Dear Lord in Heaven Above,

Why must Thou maketh it snow so much?

What, exactly, art Thou thinking? Thou seemest to have gotten into a rut lately. Dost Thou have a new divine toboggan, or something?

Look down upon these lowly masses, cursing the infernal whiteness and rending their fiberfill garments, and have pity upon us.

We are at our wit's end, Oh Father of us All, and we are tempted to smite our loved ones with our shovels if if we have to spend yet another weekend cooped up with them.

We despair, as our youth wear their snowy boots into the house yet again, and throw snowballs at the heads of their elders, who are too slow to be able to retaliate.

We know that Thou hast a great sense of humor; indeed, it is generally regarded as one of Thy best qualities. But, Thy joke is starting to seem really annoying, like unto the three-year-old who telleth the same knock-knock joke thirty times without lettup, or the college student who short-sheeteth his neighbor yet again after putting peanut butter into his bed. It getteth old, Oh God.

Thou, who art omnipotent,whose eye is on the sparrow, surely Thou art getting tired of looking down upon the snow, which was pure as its driven self once upon a time, but now hath great patches of grey, and yellow, and lumps of brown, and Thou knowest what that is, and what an abomination.

The people raise their eyes to Thee, or at least they would, except that they would have snow in them, since it snoweth without letup, pretty much.

We appeal to Thee, please change the weather pattern, and bringeth the warmer air, and allow the Sun, one of Thy best ideas, if one may be so bold, to shine yet again upon Thy pastures.

Winter Wonderland?

I wonder if this winter will ever end.

Sitting here, looking out my window at the sycamore tree, I am reminded of Dr. Zhivago. Is that Omar Sharif out there on the hillside, stumbling along wild-eyed through the waist-deep snow in his ragged blanket and rag-wrapped feet, looking for Tonya? No, it is my neighbor, getting ready to snowblow his driveway for the umpteenth time. I think if I look closely, I can see icicles on his eyebrows.

It is interesting to contemplate the limited color palette of winter. I can see white, and several shades of gray, and occasionally a flash of red as the cardinal attacks a window, as he has been wont to do for at least three years now. I know that he thinks he sees another cardinal, but I am sometimes tempted to open the window and invite him in. You think it's so great in here?

The snow stopped being enjoyable about two weeks ago, when our elderly dog Joey, currently a gigantic, lumbering, furry bush of a dog, decided that it was too much trouble to go find a discreet patch of lawn on which to do his business, and discovered that the snow-covered deck made a perfectly acceptable port-o-potty. You haven't lived, truly, until you have chipped frozen doggy-doo off of your deck with a shovel. I have posted a large notice on the deck door, to whit: "Do Not Let Joey Out of This Door! He is Using the Deck as a Toilet!" to remind all and sundry house occupants that Joey is to be discouraged from this practice whenever possible.

I am getting a whole new appreciation of the term "cabin fever". How about cabin aggravation? Cabin frustration? Cabin rage? Perhaps we are just staging a living conceptual performance of Sartre's No Exit. Hell is indeed other people, especially when there is only one functioning bathroom (don't ask).

All kinds of literary and classical images come to mind. There is the myth of Sisyphus, wherein you shovel snow today, only to have it magically reappear overnight, so that you have to shovel it again. Then there is the Twilight Zone episode The Midnight Sun, wherein the Earth is getting too close to the sun - or is it?

Perhaps we are just experiencing the veracity of the saying "be careful what you wish for." Here in Southeastern Pennsylvania, at the same latitude as Rome, snowy winters are rare, indeed. How often have I heard the relatively snowless winters bemoaned?

Well, folks, this is one for the ages. We will tell our grandchildren about the epic winter of '10, but they won't listen, because by then the ears of the young will be vestigial organs, and they will only understand acronyms. Lol.

Objets D'ust

You know all of those little items that sit around your home on desks, or side tables, or the piano? All of those decorative knicknacks and pattywhacks you have collected over the years?

I call them objets d'ust, which is a French term for "little decorative things sitting around your home collecting a lot of dust." I call them this because, at least in my home, they seem to be magnets for the little stuff that floats around in the air, looking for a place to settle.

Dust. You know, I think that I have blogged about this before, in my veni vedi bloggi sort of way. But, since I am a perniciously perseverating person, (don't you just love alliteration, especially when it is gratuitous and overdone) I find myself thinking about it a lot. Of course, there is a lot of dust in my house to perseverate over.

I am not sure why this is; I prefer not to think about what the dust is composed of, or why we have so much of it. Somehow, though, I am sure that it has to do with the fact that we have a very hairy dog who is old and scratches himself a lot.

I have this little wand thingie from Swiffer, the company that is slowly taking over my life with its products, and I go around the house running the wand thingie over all of my cherished memorabilia and photos, to dedustify them. But, as soon as my back is turned, they seem to grow new dust magically; it is as if there is some Dust Fairy that sprinkles each objet as soon as my back is turned. Not to be confused with the Dust Bunny, who hides big clumps of dust under the beds each Easter.

One time there was this particularly unusual little figurine that I had never noticed before, on a table. I got out my Swiffer wand item and ran it over the figurine and it disappeared. Turned out, it was actually made of dust.

Thank God I got rid of it before it organized itself into a life form, via the process of spontaneous generation, or whatever. I seem to remember something about Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, Erasmus Darwin and a piece of vermicelli, but there was no pasta involved in the creation of my dust entity.

Maybe I should just give up, and let the dust organize itself into furnishings. Now, about those dust curtains...