introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- happy happy birthday baby and the snow shovel medley happy birthday to you - fifth of december, 2002 "i love you so dearly i love you so clearly i wake you up in the morning so early "~the be good tanyas i'm not really sure when it started snowing. they said it was coming, but like a lot of the hype that comes through on the ten o'clock news (we rarely stay awake enough for the eleven o'clock news these days...last year's opposite)....like a lot of the hype, i wasn't sure i believed. but when the alarm went off this cold morning, the first in your usual series of snooze and rocknroll volume/static combination, i peeked out from the blinds. "wow. it snowed." and it really did. but like i said, i don't know when it started. at four thirty t his morning, the cars in the street behind our house looked like they'd had big fluffy mounds of marshmallow slathered on their icy steel. but you could still see the grass, mostly, i think. "but that grass is a foot tall." and it is. you agreed. i never saw a mower cut the golden green blades and if it had happened, i imagine the blades of the grass would have won in a tangled war with mower blades. nature has a way of winning out over the best of our intentions. so you unwrapped your present, the new ryan adams cd you'd been coveting...and i fell back to sleep after you'd read your birthday cards. i didn't even hear you turn on the shower. i barely remember kissing you goodbye. so you can imagine the shock when the phone rang at six thirty. you. telling me you'd made it to work okay. it had taken you an hour. i smiled as i curled back up under all of the covers. you drove in snow. real snow. bad roads. and you made it to work. [congrats on that.] but there was no work for me today because the old ladies couldn't drive in this weather. so i did the next most logical thing: i shoveled. i let verbil out to romp in the blanket that concealed our big front yard and i pushed the snow up the long sidewalk, watching it ripple aside, leaving a wake of frozen white to the sides. i shoveled our walk and then, i shoveled gwen's. and then, after that, i shoveled the sidewalk of our other neighbors..the ones who never say hello, even when we do. i salted the cold concrete and i threw snowballs at the dog. the cat came out, too, and meowed her irritated mew at the disagreeable weather. but what do cats know? and then, i helped gwen shovel myrtle's walk across the street. the snow plows never did hit our street. and then, the dog and the cat and i came inside and had some tea. and we did the dishes. and i can't wait for you to get home, baby, because its about time we get this birthday party started right. happy birthday. i love you. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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