The Late Arrival

Both eyes welled up and I blinked back the throat-lump that, if released, would send me into an ugly, snotting, snorting cry. Darnit, Disney did it again. How could they have made me cry over a little egged shaped robot crying over the death of another trash compactor robot? Outisde of a WALL-E or Eva said in robot voices, I don't even think they actually had a conversation during the entire  movie . But there I was, on the verge of boo-hoo-crying in a theater over them. Another Disney movie had me believing a house could fly if only enough balloons were tethered to it. That same movie had me seriously considering the plausibility of science developing a collar that could translate dogs' thoughts into words...and wondering what our Charley would say once we got such a collar for him. That one made me cry too. Yet another movie had me enchanted by the absolute beauty of paper lanterns floating up into a dark, star-spangled sky to commemorate the birthday of a lost...

There's nothing special about our neighborhood. No quaint cul de sacs. Just streets that run north to south, sandwiched in between two busy avenues. It's a throwback place -- a hub of post-WWII homes and tree-lined streets whose limbs form a sort of cathedral ceiling. It's a silent night neighborhood . After dark, outside of a few who power-walk dogs begging them to go potty or poop and the occasional car slowly driving north or south, everyone's inside at nighttime. At midnight, Jamie and I were driving that occasional car, returning from a date night while Georgia was at a sleepover. The sky was clear, snowflakes sprinkled past the streetlamps and the streets and sidewalks were empty. Modern Love came on the radio as we began making the slight ascent to our block. We sang along and I knew we'd have to abandon it and our singing by the time we parked. We reached a stop sign at the top of the hill, and Jamie checked for any occasional westbound or eastbo...

The ice ruts in our narrow alley are at least a foot deep. I fought-drove through these uneven passages, trying to strike a balance between keeping the tires aligned within them but not so aligned that the car gets stuck in one. The vehicle and I successfully made it to our destination. The next step was gingerly angling the car across the ruts and backing it into a one-car garage that already bulges with Jamie's many "treasures" without breaking a side mirror. Somewhere in between the first or fourth attempt, I thought about how crazy it is that 22 ° feels balmy in comparison to the minus 22° it was two days ago. And that's when I checked out and drifted back to the day when... ...the air was a thick hot blanket that wrapped itself around each limb, making clothes cling and hair fall limp – or in my case, kink up even more. Smoky pregnant clouds above seemed close enough to touch. They promised rain but refused to deliver, as if intimidated by the sunshine...

A comedian once said that meteorologists have the only job where you can be: evasive: There's probably maybe kind of sort of about a 50% chance of rain ambiguous: We'll have 2 to 12 inches of snow... and wrong: Looks like the storm we've been anticipating just missed us... and still keep your job. I should've been a meteorologist. But this isn't a time for ruing over unfulfilled wishes. The weather guys and girls are predicting a Mini Ice Age. Shouldn't come as a shock. I grew up here, it's just winter in the Midwest. But despite that, I still had my undies in a bundle with the incessant cold-weather-warning harping. In fact, I got depressed. Starting wishing we had deeper pockets so we could flee to someplace warm; and then seriously considered going into debt so we could do it. Finally, I decided that neither wishing nor being buried under a stack of bills were viable options, so I did the next best thing: perused warm-weathe...