The Freelance Retort: Icy Cold Remains

Another winter storm is behind us but the icy cold remains.

The icy cold always remains.

It’s just how icy cold is.

Not that there isn’t a place for icy cold.

Any icy cold beverage on a hot summer day is always welcome.

Or an icy cold stare is appropriate for that woman who you overheard saying to your dentist, she thought you walked like a duck.

And an icy cold response is often called for, under the proper circumstances, such as that time you may or may not have been caught going through your best friends sock drawer claiming to be admiring his argyle collection.

So we shouldn’t just decide to eliminate icy cold across the board.

No…I would save that for wishy washy.

No one ever needs wishy washy.

Or willy nilly, for that matter.

Two pointless qualifiers, at least in my opinion, neither of which is used all that much anymore.

I think….

But getting back to this intemperate weather—which, in all fairness, is working very hard to correct its wayward ways—we collected about 11 inches of the white stuff, the other day.

White stuff, of course being snow, although I suppose I shouldn’t automatically assume you would know that’s what I meant.

I mean, there are a number of other white substances that one might collect at any given time…like the stuff you find in your navel at the end of the day

Or Mothballs.

Even Cotton balls.

All of which would be weird, but hey…who am I to judge.

11 inches of the nicest, whitest, fluffiest snow you could ever imagine, if sitting around imagining snow is something you do.

Of course Z was up long before the sun, raring to get out there. I wrote about Z’s fondness for snow shoveling way back when I first started writing these things, in May of 2011.

Why I was writing about snow in May is beyond me, but hey, I was new at this, and I tended to just write about anything that popped in my head at the moment…unlike now, where I write and I hope something will pop into my head by the time I finish.

So, instead of re-telling, I’m just gonna pop in the old description, in the interest of redundancy prevention, plus the fact that it allows me to write less and take a much needed break.

So here’s me from the past…..

Snowy days are the worst since Z has a love/hate relationship with snow. She loves it on weekends and holidays but hates it during the week. I guess maybe because she has to drive through the slop, down to the Bronx and back, while I, as I said, have about a 12 step commute

After a large overnight snowfall, she's been known to pop out of bed at 5 AM, speak in tongue, run down the stairs, grab a shovel, bolt out the door and immediately start shoveling, long before the sun comes up.

But she really enjoys it…at least that’s what I tell myself…and my neighbors.

Scrape..scrape…scrape.

That’s the awful sound I’ve woken up to on many a frozen morning. Awful because I know I HAVE to get out there too. I mean I’m not a complete schlub. And to be honest, I kind of like shoveling, myself…once in a while. Not every other day. Not before dawn.

I usually get out there by the time she reaches the end of the front walk, which is moderately long. Sometimes she’s already made the turn and has carved a meticulously clean path half way down the sidewalk, as well.

I’m usually greeted with, “You didn’t have to come out!”

I usually mutter something unintelligible in return and grab my shovel.

Then she continues, in the cheeriest voice you can imagine, “I’m gonna finish up here, make breakfast, do a load of laundry, iron, clean the bath tub…and then shower, dress and get to work by 8! How’s your day look?”

It’s about then that I begin hacking at the wall of ice that the snow plow has left at the end of my driveway.

Hey…okay…I’m back in the present…sort of. And since Z and I are nothing if not consistent, if not boring…that’s pretty much exactly how it all went down the other day.

So I guess there really isn’t any point in complaining about the snow or the cold weather. It comes and it goes…and then it comes back again…year after year…unless you live in Las Vegas or Florida, where a bunch of little snowbirds are constantly telling me how nice it is.

So I guess I can complain about that.

Or about the people that only shovel a path about 10 inches wide, which really isn’t so bad because you get to practice your tight rope walk, or the ones who only shovel the part of the path that they actually walk on, from their door to their car…or the ones who leave about a 2 foot patch of snow at the end of their property because they think it might belong to the neighbor...even though the neighbor has already shoveled.

Is there really any need for that?

No…not if you hire a surveyor to draw a line exactly where your sidewalk ends and theirs begins…not that I know anyone who would have done that…maybe.

Hey…why should I have to shovel one inch more than necessary.

It’s a long winter.

And I can’t seem to convince icy cold to take a trip down south.

So I guess we’re stuck with it for a while.

Besides…icy cold isn’t all that bad.

At least it keeps my beer cold.

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