Saturday I was up at six and out with Whiskey. The snow,
which we were half anxious about and half disbelieving, really did arrive and
it was sharp and stinging, being blown by 30+ mile per hour winds. We headed
out to the East River to play despite the weather and though we were mere yards
from the water below, we could hardly see it, the snow was too thick.
We headed to the basketball courts, the same ones where
pre-children I played many a pick-up game. There were only dogs of the hardy
type there with their owners more Nanook than Upper East.
The dogs cavorted. They rolled in the deep. They chased each
other and their tails.
I had brought a fluorescent throw toy for Whiskey, but one
long toss and it buried itself in the fluff and between her nose and my eyes,
we still couldn’t find it. No matter, we walked and walked through the
blizzard, thinking of the Cremation of Sam McGee and Jack London’s “To Build A
Fire.” After an hour we headed back home, dropping our wet boots and wet gear
in the hallway to dry.
Work intruded like a blizzard. Conference calls and
re-writes and more conference calls and more re-writes. For a while it seemed
like the various pings and bings and chimes from the various digital tethers
that encase us were coming in as fast as the blizzard. However, the blizzard
stopped after eighteen hours. The pings and chimes and bings and bongs did not.
I sat in my leather chair in my reading nook and did the
best I could do with various comments and concerns. Whiskey decided to settle
with me and climbed up on my ottoman and lay down in a ball. From the living
room Wagner’s “Tannhauser” was on. Suitable music for the roil of the day.
I did my work. I walked Whiskey again and got the eggs my
wife wanted. Then I did more work.
My worries piled up like snow.
There was no one to shovel the drifts but me.
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