January 3: Snow, Daughter's Friend Who's a Boy, Classic Saint Marty

Woke this morning to a fresh coating of fluffy white precipitation.  About an inch or so.  It wasn't bad.  Easy to shovel and quite beautiful sitting in the trees, dusting the cars parked along the street, drifting in the wind like dandelion fluff.  Of course, I'm not too happy about the lake effect snow warning issued by the National Weather Service for tonight.  There's an additional three to nine inches of beauty headed my way, with blowing and drifting.

I had my daughter's friend who's a boy help my shovel this afternoon.  He took the snow scoop and went to work.  As I said, the snow was really light, so the work was easy.  It took us about a half hour to finish the job.  He's a small kid, but, when given a task, he throws himself into it.  My daughter just sat in the house, happy there was somebody else to do her share of the shoveling.  I have a feeling, when his parents pick him up this evening, my daughter is going to be a little sad.  Moodier than normal, if that's possible.

Of course, an extra day off school would improve her mood for sure.  I'm not sure that's going to happen with the current weather forecast, but there's always a possibility.  It depends on the amount of snow we receive and the strength of the winds.

According to today's episode of Classic Saint Marty, four years ago we were dealing with extreme cold.  As a matter of fact, if I remember correctly, Christmas vacation was extended about three days because of a polar vortex spinning over the Great Lakes.  Every night, my kids were glued to the TV, waiting for school to be canceled again.

They may not be quite so lucky this year...

January 3, 2012:  At McDonald's Again, Cold is Cheap, Scrooge

I'm currently at McDonald's, racing my laptop's battery to get this posted.  I have 37 minutes.  I've had a really productive hour or so here.  I just uploaded my post from this morning.  I submitted some poems for an anthology of U.P. poets that's coming out this year.  (I'm pretty much assured of getting published.  I know the guy who's putting it together, and he likes my stuff.)  And now, I'm trying to get my second post done.

Thirty-four minutes.  The view outside the window here at McDonald's highlights all the new snow we received yesterday.  The whole hill on the opposite side of the highway is pure white, covered with black pine trees.  The temperature this morning was about -6 degrees Fahrenheit.  It's warmed up to around 3 degrees now.

Sometimes, Scrooge got it right

Speaking of warmth, I'm sort of a Scrooge when it comes to heat in my house.  It's not because I don't like being warm.  It's because my heating bills are so astronomically high January through March/April.  I'm reminded of what Dickens says about darkness and Scrooge:  "Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it."  When my wife or daughter complain about the coldness of our abode, my response is always the same:  "Coldness is cheap, and Martin likes it."  When I'm feeling particularly generous, I will allow my daughter to turn the thermostat up a few degrees.  It's like Christmas morning all over again for her.  Just another way to keep Christmas alive.

Eleven minutes.  Saint Marty is done.