I am sitting here looking out the window. I have got the fever, big time. The heavy white snow first turned to a grayish wet mass as it cooled the blacktop of the Big Pink parking lot, and then it turned white. Now it is piling up as the heavy snow bands cross over the capital.
The contract truck came by and scraped it down to ruts of black for a minute, but it rapidly returned to white with gray lumps like bad mashed potatoes. I had slipped into a sort of denial about the coming storm- I emerged from my bedchamber around three-thirty and saw nothing unusual out the window, except for a vague reflection from the streetlights on the blacktop that suggested there had been rain.
I felt like I ought to do something, and I took swift and dramatic action and went back to bed.
The fugue state was entertaining. I thought about the people in my life, the whole vast parade of them, and the sub-sets and categories of the relations. I concluded that I am a lucky bastard and then drifted deeper, incorporating Vivaldi’s Four Seasons into the swirl of images as the clock radio clicked on in mid-movement. Spring, maybe, though I confess I can’t tell the seasons apart.
There was more astonishing news, which I promptly ignored, once I got done checking the mail on the iPad in bed. Everything in the region is closed: the Feds, the Schools, all the institutions. I was pleased that I got to the Class Six store for liquor and gas, and hit the Commissary for all sorts of things I didn’t really need.
Since the Great Transition from rain to sleet to heavy snow was not expected to commence until after midnight, we made merry with a selection of the Usual Suspects.
The Missileers were there for a night out before snow-enforced seclusion. Old Jim was represented by his bride, Chanteuse Mary; the lovely Jamie and TLB held down the corner. Peter was thoughtful and kind, periodically talking to his mother, turning 90, and for whom he cares as best he can. There was a long discussion about contingency plans for the storm, what to do.
Jasper announced that he was going to be bar-tending, regardless of the amount of snow, since he couldn’t afford to miss the hours. Vivacious Heather, her look channeling Joan Blondell, informed us they would indeed be open, albeit with a skeleton staff. There was a corporate private party that had an event scheduled for Chantilly, and expecting everyone to drive out I-66 from town was frankly insane.
I thought it was insane just to think about going out in it.
Then we talked about plans for the Gold Cup race at Great Meadow in May. The ladies considered the dizzying number of options regarding frocks, but I don’t have to worry: I will reprise the Southern Lawyer circa 1960 look in gray seersucker suit, straw Panama hat and white bucks. I pondered that image, had my last vodka-and-diet-tonic and made plans to batten down the hatches- because it will be warm again and the ice will be gone and the swimming pool will be open and the blue waters will glitter.
Because Spring is coming. It has to.
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303