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.