December 1: Shell-Shocked Fragments, Snowpocalypse, Blizzardy Thanksgiving Weekend

After a fairly shaky start to the day, Arthur's mind was beginning to reassemble itself from the shell-shocked fragments the previous day had left him with . . .

It has been a really long, shell-shocky day for me, as well, and it's only 3:19 in the afternoon.  A second snowpocalypse hit my little area of the Upper Peninsula early this morning, and it's still going strong.  I'm a bad judge of how much snow has fallen, but I would guess about 20 feet.  At least, that's what my back is telling me.

Church services were cancelled early, so I headed out at 7:30 this morning to start shoveling.  I finally came back inside about 11:30, and I still hadn't cleared everything.  Thank God for my neighbor across the street.  He came over with his snowblower and helped clear around the vehicles in my driveway, so I was able to get them moved.

Then, I came inside and collapsed in my bed until I got a text from my plow guy.  Out I went again to move cars and shovel some more.  At one point, my plow guy rolled down his window and said, "This is crazy.  These are January snowbanks.  I'm runnin' out of places to push this shit."  He finished up, and I backed our cars into the driveway with the help of my daughter's boyfriend.

I am currently inside.  My feet are up.  I've taken some Ibuprofen.  And I am officially done with winter.  We have enough snow now for Christmas, New Year's Eve and Day, and the next Winter Olympics.  I have one bed available for any athletes looking for lodging.  I don't care if I step outside again until mid-July.

On top of all of that, I have a houseful of teenagers.  Friends of my daughter who slept here Saturday night.  It looks light they'll be spending tonight here, as well.  One of them is freaking out at the moment because she has chemistry and math tests tomorrow, and she doesn't have her books to study.  She literally wants to risk her life to try to get home right now.  (She lives about 20 miles out of town in a very rural area.)  My daughter came down and asked me when the storm was supposed to stop.  The National Weather Service's Winter Storm Warning for our area is set to expire at 4 p.m.  In about 15 minutes.  I looked at my daughter and said, "Just because the storm stops doesn't mean it's safe to drive on the roads."  She rolled her eyes, spun on her heals, and tossed an "Okay!" over her shoulder at me as she stomped up to her room.

I feel bad for my daughter's friend.  I understand her panic and fear because, as a student, I was very much like her.  Fear of failure is overpowering.  It's what keeps me moving most days.  I don't want to be a disappointment to anybody.  It's why I drag myself out of bed at 4:15 every weekday.  Why I work four different jobs.  Why I get about four to five hours of sleep a night.  And why I've been up since 7:30 this morning, pushing snow and juggling cars.  I have a family to take care of.  Obligations to fulfill.  And, even though my daughter doesn't see it right now, I'm trying to keep these hormonal teenagers safe.

I'm not complaining.  I like taking care of people, being dependable.  That's why, after I'm done typing this post, I'm going to go into the kitchen and cook some food for my household.  Starting with a spinach and artichoke bomb.  Then some blueberry pancakes probably, because it's a blueberry pancake kind of night.

So, at the end of this blizzardy Thanksgiving weekend, I am grateful for my neighbor who came over with his snowblower this morning to help me out.  For my plow guy, who moved a mountain of snow for me.  For my eleven-year-old son, who moved an eleven-year-old-size mountain of snow, as well.  For my warm house, and my refrigerator full of food.  For my wife, who let me take a nap this afternoon.  For my Christmas tree glowing in the corner of the living, reminding me that there's light in the world.

Saint Marty is sore and blessed.

February 24: Bugblatter Beast of Traal, Blizzard Warning, Oscar Night

Arthur is learning about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

"I'll show you how it works," said Ford.  He snatched it from Arthur, who was still holding it as if it were a two-week dead lark, and pulled it out of the cover.

"You press this button here, you see, and the screen lights up, giving you the index."

A screen, about three inches by four, lit up and characters began to flicker across the surface.

"You want to know about Vogons, so I entered that name so."  His fingers tapped some more keys.  "And there we are."  

The words Vogon Constructor Fleets flared in green across the screen.

Ford pressed a large red button at the bottom of the screen and words began to undulate across it.  At the same time, the book began to speak the entry as well in a still, quiet, measured voice.  This is what the book said:

"Vogon Constructor Fleets.  Here is what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon:  forget it.  They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy--not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous.  They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled for firelighters.

"The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat, and the best way to irritate him is to feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

"On no account allow a Vogon to read poetry at you."

Arthur blinked at it.

I must say that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sounds a lot like an iPhone, with Siri reading an entry on Vogons.  It has been kind of a crazy day.  Got up this morning to try to get my car shoveled out to go to church.  Didn't happen.  Too much snow, and the plows had come through.  There was a concrete wall of white blocking the entire street line of my property.  I spent 40 minutes digging, pushing, and digging some more.  Then I came back inside, checked my iPhone, and found out that the church services had been canceled for the day.

Not only that, but the Winter Storm Warning had also been canceled for my little corner of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, only to be replaced by a Blizzard Warning that is in effect until 1 a.m. tomorrow.

My son is doing a no-school dance.  My daughter and her boyfriend have been firmly ensconced upstairs in my daughter's bedroom all day, watching Netflix.  And I am sitting in my kitchen, listening to the wind rattle my windows and drive clouds of white powder into my backyard.

Earlier, my plow guy came through.  He dug us out.  I got my car stuck down the street.  (I was attempting to reach my mother's house to see if everybody was alright.  Didn't make it.)  With the help of my daughter, her boyfriend, my plow guy, and a helpful neighbor, I was able to push my way back up the street to my driveway.  Since that time, I haven't stepped foot outside.

UPDATE:  My kids just found out that school is canceled for tomorrow.,

Tonight, I will be watching the Academy Awards as my house gets buried in drifts of snow.  I'm supposed to work tomorrow.  I'm supposed to teach tomorrow.  (The university will not make an announcement about cancellation until the wee morning hours.)  Usually, on Oscar night, I get together with my family, eat snacks, order pizza, and have a little competition.  It's like New Year's Eve but without the horns and balloons.  That won't be happening this year.

Currently, I'm wondering what we're going to eat for dinner.  Old Father Hubbard's cupboard is pretty bare.  I have blueberries that I picked this summer.  There's eggs and milk.  Tonight's menu might consist of blueberry pancakes and omelets.

I hope all of my disciples are safe and warm tonight.  Stay off the roads.  Drink hot cocoa.  Watch a bunch of shallow people in Hollywood congratulate themselves on how wonderful they are.

That's what Saint Marty is going to do.

February 12: Wow, Snowboy, Piling Up and Up

President Zaphod Beeblebrox does not want to build a wall or shut down the government . . .

Everyone beamed at him, or at least, nearly everyone.  He singled out Trillian from the crowd.  Trillian was a girl that Zaphod had picked up recently while visiting a planet, just for fun, incognito.  She was slim, darkish, humanoid, with long waves of black hair, a full mouth, an odd little knob of a nose and ridiculously brown eyes.  With her red head scarf knotted in that particular way and her long flowing silky brown dress, she looked vaguely Arabic.  Not that anyone there had ever heard of an Arab of course.  The Arabs had very recently ceased to exist, and even when they had existed they were five hundred thousand light-years from Damogran.  Trillian wasn't anybody in particular, or so Zaphod claimed.  She just went around with him rather a lot and told him what she thought of him.

"Hi, honey," he said to her.

She flashed him a quick tight smile and looked away.  Then she looked back for a moment and smiled more warmly--but by this time he was looking at something else.

"Hi," he said to a small knot of creatures from the press who were standing nearby wishing that he would stop saying Hi and get on with the quotes.  He grinned at them particularly because he knew that in a few moments he would be giving them one hell of a quote.

The next thing he said though was not of use to them.  One of the officials of the party had irritably decided that the President was clearly not in a mood to read the deliciously turned speech that had been written for him, and had flipped the switch on the remote-control device in his pocket.  Away in front of them a huge white dome that bulged against the sky cracked down the middle, split and slowly folded itself down into the ground.  Everyone gasped although they had known perfectly well it was going to do that because they'd built it that way.

Beneath it lay uncovered a huge starship, one hundred and fifty meters long, shaped like a sleek running shoe, perfectly white and mind-boggingly beautiful.  At the heart of it, unseen, lay a small gold box which carried within it the most brain-wrenching device ever conceived, a device that made this starship unique in the history of the Galaxy, a device after which the ship had been named--the Heart of Gold.

"Wow," said Zaphod Beeblebrox to the Heart of Gold.  There wasn't much else he could say.

He said it again because he knew it would annoy the press.  "Wow."

I find myself in the same situation I've been in many times these past couple weeks.  I'm sitting at my kitchen table, typing this blog post.  My kids are home, dismissed early from school because of a snowstorm.  I just looked out my window at the white stuff piling up, and what just went through my mind is exactly what Zaphod voices about the Heart of Gold:  "Wow."

I'm getting tired of winter storm warnings and ice storm warnings and the sound of plows chewing up the streets.  Since the ice storm last Monday, I think schools across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan have been closed more than they've been open.  And there's a good chance tomorrow morning that they will all be closed again because this storm is supposed to continue all night long.

This possibility does not upset the young people of my household.  My daughter is upstairs, playing video games with her boyfriend.  My son is outside, diving into snowbanks like he's some kind of winter superhero named Snowboy.  It doesn't matter how red his face gets, he will continue to leap tall snowdrifts in a single bound.  Of course, when he comes back inside his Fortress of Warmth, he'll insist on hot chocolate and, maybe, some dry clothes.  He'll morph back into his human alter ego--Little Brother.

In about an hour, the gentleman who does my plowing will be by.  I'll have to put on my boots and coat and go outside to move the vehicles in my driveway to get everything cleared.  Thank goodness for him.  When I got home this afternoon, I spent a good 45 minutes just shoveling out my daughter's car and pushing snow out of the way.  I wouldn't have the energy to keep up with winter this year if I didn't have the aid of a person with a pickup truck and a plow.  In fact, I'd probably just curl up in a fetal position every time snow was in the forecast.

This afternoon, as the winter storm was just getting started outside, my boss at the surgery center where I work appeared for another meeting, to outline the plans for dismantling the place.  Packing stuff up.  Throwing stuff out.  Now, I know that I cannot change this situation.  It's going to happen whether I help with the process or steadfastly refuse to participate.  There's a part of me, however, that simply wants to say, "If you want to shut this place down, you better find a whole army of people to help you."

I won't do that, of course.  I need the work and health insurance.  It's just that I remember when my sister cut the ribbon to open the surgery center over 20 years ago.  I remember how happy she was, proud of her accomplishment.  And I also remember how she fought to keep the place up and running.  I don't really relish being a part of the undoing of all her hard work.

This whole moment in my life feels like a snowstorm that just won't stop.  Everything piling up and up.

Saint Marty is tired of shoveling.

April 15: White, Classic Saint Marty, "Spring Snow Storm"

It has been a very long day of a lot of snow.  When I say a lot, I mean so much snow that the whole friggin' world is just . . . white.  The ground, trees, houses.  Even the air is white, filled with little bits of white driven sideways by a white wind.  Just a little while ago, my car was stuck in white.  My muscles are aching white, and there's a white weariness sitting on my shoulders.

I have spent the afternoon shoveling, grading, planning lessons, and waiting for my plow guy to make an appearance.  He just finished up, pushing the two-foot drifts of white into some kind of organization in my front yard.  He looked exhausted, said he'd been plowing since about seven o'clock this morning.  And it ain't over yet for him.  He's got another day of white to organize.

All the schools in the area have already closed for tomorrow, except the university where I teach.  That will probably happen tomorrow morning at about 6 a.m.  That means there are a lot of kids, including my own, who are going to stay up late tonight, enjoying an unexpected three-day weekend. 

Me?  I'm stressing about my drive tomorrow morning to the outpatient surgery center where I earn my medical insurance.  It's twenty miles of the worst stretch of winter highway in the Upper Peninsula, besides M-28, which runs to Munising along Lake Superior.  The road commission frequently closes M-28 during weather like this.  Not sure if it's closed right now, although it wouldn't surprise me.  My plow guy told me that the U.S. 41 stretch I have to drive tomorrow morning was 15 miles of whiteout.  So . . . that didn't help my anxiety.

It seems like April 15 is a day that causes me stress regularly.  Three years ago, I was having anxiety of a different kind . . .

April 15, 2015:  Like Drowning, My Dad, Incredible Guilt

Ives and Annie slept, entangled in each other's arms, their daughter sleeping alone.  Ives wold get up a half-dozen times a night to make sure that she was resting.  And every so often he would push the door open, intending to turn the radio off, but would find himself standing silently over her, his heart breaking whenever he would think about how much Robert's death must have pained her.  And he would sometimes move closer, and, brushing aside the hair that fell over her brow, plant a tender kiss on her forehead.  He would hear her sigh . . . You know what it was like?  It was like drowning.

This paragraph comes shortly after Ives' son, Robert, is murdered.  It's always a difficult passage for me to read because it's full of so much pain.  I have done what Ives is doing:  standing by my daughter's bed, watching her sleep.  It's that parental impulse of wanting to protect your child from any harm, any heartbreak.  And not being able to.


My dad visits my sister every day in the nursing home.  He drives there for lunch and stays several hours.  It's really all he can do to help her.  He doesn't understand medicine or surgery or treatment.  In fact, I would say that he has a severe distrust of doctors and nurses and the medical establishment.  Understandably.  The healthcare system for which my sister worked fired her for getting a prolonged sickness.  The doctors have really done nothing to help her.  Now, she's looking at a long-term stay in a nursing home.

My dad comes from the same generation as Ives.  Hardworking.  Devout.  Protective.  My sister's situation is tearing him apart.  He knows she can't come home in her current state, but he doesn't want to see her flat on her back in a hospital bed all day, every day, either.  As a father, it's a terrible position to be in.

I have incredible guilt at the moment.  I feel like I should be doing more to help my sister, and, yet, I have to work and teach.  My family depends on my paychecks for survival.  I don't have a whole lot of freedom in my life.  I want to be her advocate, hound the lawyer and social worker and doctors.  Yet, I can't do it all on my lunch break or after work.

It feels like all I can do is be like Ives:  stand by my sister's bed, watch her sleep, pray.

Saint Marty feels like he's drowning a little bit tonight, too.

Don't know how long I can hold my breath

The winter storm warning for my little corner of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan has just been extended until 8 p.m. tomorrow night, with the possibility of an additional 10 to 12 more inches of snow. 

Saint Marty is getting really tired of winter.

Spring Snow Storm

by:  Martin Achatz

The weather guy, in his ugly tie,

Predicts six to twelve inches tonight,

A spring storm out of Alaska, Canada,

Winds as strong as cattle trains.

Tomorrow, I will wake to this creature,

This force of different fronts from ocean,

Mountain, glacier, tundra.  I’ve heard

It said a butterfly’s wings, trembled

On African savannah, causes hurricanes

On the Gulf Coast, another flood

In the Big Easy, wipes out Mardi Gras

For good, an oil slick of jazz

On magnolia, pelican wing, bayou.

I wonder if the collective gasp in Japan

After earthquake and tsunami caused

This early spring snow, set into motion

Winds across the Pacific, bore

That shock and grief through salt,

Through supermoon, mixed it with cries

Of caribou and polar bear, brought

It to me, to my home, snow falling

On roof and car, snow on street, lawn,

Gas station, church steeple, snow

Everywhere, heavy as a thousand souls.

Tonight, when I press my lips to my son’s

Fingers, somewhere on this planet

Rain will start to fall in a desert place,

Filling the land with green life.