More Weather

It's snowing like a bastard. I was talking to my girls, and I noticed the sound was muffled, flipped on the porch light, and sure enough, it's snowing to beat the band. I'm short of water, so I start melting snow, a mindless task, ten to one ratio. Taj recommends we turn our lamps down low. It's hard to trust someone who lives in Hawaii. Slack guitar or not. Lost a page to an unexpected power outage. Had to get to D's yesterday, to built that table for the carving residency, finally left the house about 10 o'clock and crept the length of Mackletree, which was a sheet of black ice, with easier going after that. Easy table, massive, 2 inch framing stock, mostly assembled before we broke for lunch, Carma had made meatloaf and mashed potatoes, with fried apple slices, excellent lunch, with a beer. Finished the table, spitting snow, head home with four mini-meatloaves Carma had made for my freezer. Blowing snow on top of the black ice on Mackletree. Bad conditions, but I move along in 4-wheel drive at between 5 and 10 MPH, coming to a complete stop when I pass 2 trucks coming the other way. If I have a wreck, on this stretch of road, it is not going to be my fault, except for the possible sin of merely being there. It happens, some times, that I arrive at the bottom, back in, pull into my winter ruts in my off-driveway parking spot, put on my crampons, shoulder my pack, grab my walking stick, which is, for the second year, an aluminum mop handle. Lock up the truck, and look around, ridges on both sides of the road, going up steeply, and this is the gap, the Low Gap. It's a nice spot, Upper Twin Creek starting right there, you can point it out with your walking stick. Everything is very clear. The drainage and the atmosphere. And there's no wind, because it's so protected. The driveway, at the top, looks right into the normal weather direction, as soon as I crested, my eyes were streaming tears, fucking gale, blowing across the ridge tops. I don't know why I didn't hear it, I usually do, I must have been watching something, or thinking intently, because I would have usually taken my glasses off and put them in a pocket, but now, they are frozen to my face. Stop at the stoop on the front of the print-shop, to straighten things out. The glasses are actually frozen to my hat, Linda's hat, and I veto field-surgery, since I'm only 400 feet from home, take the tangle to the house, let it melt on the warming shelf above the stove. Nothing prepares you for Spike Jones. Whatever I thought I meant.