Dog Days of Winter

It took us a couple of days to get back on schedule after almost two weeks on holiday. It was a particular problem for the boy who we had been letting sleep in until 8 or 9 in the morning when we normally give him first call at about 6:30am. He is definitely not a morning person, and it can take him a half hour or more with repeated calls for him to actually get his feet on the floor. Wednesday morning when I went in to call him for the 3rd or 4th time I found him asleep, head in his pillow but on his knees with his butt in the air. It was a tempting target to swat him to wake him but I resisted. It wasn’t so hard for me and the Mrs. to get up early again but I think more to the question was whether we were ready to go back to work. I have been frequently waking at 4am for some reason and I am not sure why. There is no burning issue that has me tense or preoccupied. I think I am just getting over heated. I guess I just have to quit cuddling so close with Mrs. under the flannel sheets and down comforter. Anyhow when that happens I get up use the bathroom, check my e-mail and settle back in bed, turning my light on low and reading for a while. Inevitably Mrs. alarm goes off just about the time I am falling back to sleep. Like the boy she needs multiple reminders t hat it is morning, so the alarm starts ringing about an hour before she actually needs to be up. The result is that when I wake early, I seldom really get back to sleep soundly for the rest of the night.

The New Year brought a round of bad news. I heard that a good friend from high school passed away from cancer on Christmas Eve. My all-seeing mother spotted the obit in the local paper and forward it to me. I had nor been in touch with George in a number of years, both distance and time had sent our paths in different directions, but we had been very close in high school, participating in drama together, and we both shared similar tastes in music, art and politics. On top of that I also received word from another old high school friend that she had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that affects the blood vessels. While her spirits are good and she is confident that she can beat it, the diagnosis is not good. The two incidents have brought home that sense of mortality that is becoming all too common for me. At this age, I wonder if every ache and pain is the sign of something more serious than just an ache or pain of aging.

More bad news; I got the annual report for my retirement account. It seems that I have lost $60,0000 last year without even trying. That takes into account the contribution that I have made as well as the university’s contribution as well, otherwise the number would have been worse. I was feeling like my account had begun to recover from the last down turn, but it was nothing like this. I wasn’t planning on retiring in the next few years, at least until the boy is out of school, but even that looks like it is in question now. Given everything, our financial situation is pretty good. I’d like to think that our jobs are pretty secure, but in these times, you just never know. We have been trying to refinance our house for several months without much success, perhaps with the interest rates dropping and some of the federal programs coming around, we might have better luck.

Given all the bad news, there is a little life around the house. We were given an Aero-Garden for Christmas. They are a little mini hydroponic garden that you put on your counter. The plants come in little pods that you insert in holes in the top. After that you basically add water, plug it in and hit the go button, and nature takes over the rest. After 2 weeks we have seven budding herb plants. We have been watching them grow like they were little kittens or something. It just goes to show how desperate we are for something green as we head into the dog days of winter.

This time of the year always seems endless. After the holidays, there really isn’t anything to break up the monotony of the winter except, ah .. March. The local news reports that December had a heavier that usual snowfall, and that we should expect more of the same until ah .. March. I purchased a 50lbs bag of sidewalk salt two weeks ago, and have already gone through nearly half of it. In a normal winter that is usually enough to make the entire winter with a little left over for that first early snowfall in November.

I am tired of shoveling snow already. We just got the latest batch on Saturday night, another 4 inches. The difficulty with snow in a city like Boston is that there is nowhere to put it when you shovel. Our house is on a corner and set right at the sidewalk with no front or side yard. Additionally there is no parking strip between the street and the side walks. To shovel a path on the sidewalk one has to either pile it against the house (not a good idea) or pile it along the outer edge of the sidewalk. Then there is the matter of getting ones car dug out, but now there is a pile of snow between the cleared path and the car. But you need to be able to get to the car, and where are you going to put the snow that is on the car? You could put it in the street, but the plows are just going to come along and plow the car back in. So what happens is that the snow gets piled at front and back of each car, creating individual cleared parking spaces. Having spent possibly hours digging ones car out, residents become protective of their parking spaces, using any variety of items to mark their spaces while unoccupied to prevent others from usurping them. The most popular marker is a traffic cone purloined from a construction site; second most is an ancient chair of some sort, and usually well past its useful life. Followed by milk crates, trashcans or large plastic child’s toys, much of which will be left out after the snow has melted and become just so much more trash on the street.

Sometimes I long for the rainy winters of the Northwest, although even they have been having severe weather this winter with heavy snow at Christmas, and now heavy flooding as it melts.

I am going to go watch the little plants grow for a while and dream of spring.