Solitude be Damned

Yesterday was my 33^rd wedding anniversary and while I spent it pretty much alone I was pleased so many people reached out to wish us congratulations. I am going to put more thought into these long separations though. They’re tough on this side because once I leave work there are no close friends to hang out with, except for the Wonder Pooch. His conversational ability is extensive but somewhat limited.  I think it will be easier with a move back to my hometown but who knows when that’s going to happen.

The highlight of the day was an extended video call with my wife and her family in Panama after I returned from my weekly Zorba’s pizza induction.  It really felt like I was there sharing jokes and since my brother in law’s wife was involved the conversation often veered into ribald territory. They’re all going to my favorite beach in the world, Las Lajas, today and are supposed to leave at 7:30. Panamanians take a much different tact on timeliness so I said I would put good money that my sister in law would never make it. I was sent the photo below at 7:27 this morning, just to prove she did. My wife was kidded mercilessly about her impending return to the frozen tundra and the conjugal bed. It was exactly what I needed at the time. My son called to join in the fun until my wife’s IPad battery ran out.

Rare Early Morning Sighting of my Sister in Law

I’m vanquishing solitude later today when Buddy and I head for Keene. The Keene Friend and I will once again darken the doorstep of a certain sports bar and have been threatened with Cantankerous Friend attendance. I’ll be interested to hear him defend Hillary’s email adventures. Just what the doctor ordered.  Before that though I have to tackle painting the kitchen ceiling so Buddy may show up in Keene with some white spots on him.

Scene to be Repeated Today

We set some more records for cold temperatures which don’t even rate mentioning since it’s become such a common occurrence over the past few weeks. My daily pictures of the receding snow are off to an extremely slow start but I’m confident we’ll get there, kind of.

Front Yard

Back Yard

Finally, unless you’ve been living in some kind of subterranean cavern you’ve probably already seen this video. I think it’s the coolest thing I’ve seen I a long time; just a great message.

Solitarily Anniversarial

33 Years Ago Today

Today’s a day for reflection since 33 years ago a sprightly young lady with incredibly flashing brown eyes was escorted down the aisle by an uncertain father to become my wife and nothing was blessedly ever the same. We’re a couple thousand miles apart for this anniversary, nothing new considering a far flung military career and her allergy to cold weather. We exchanged cards this morning over FaceTime and a very cold morning suddenly felt a lot warmer.

The Uncertain Father of the Bride

I’ve told the story before that I was a hard partying second lieutenant cutting a fairly wide swath through the female population of Panama in late 1981 when I ran into my future wife for the first time one Friday night. A friend had dragged her to the Albrook Air Force Base Officers’ Club despite her stated aversion for gringos. I finally got her to dance with me and her eyes seemed to glow, illuminating a fairly dark dance floor. I spoke only broken Spanish and she not a single word of English but we both realized, all of a sudden, something was very different.

With My Groomsmen

She was a very proper girl and wouldn’t let me drive her home (could have been all the beer she saw me consume) but she did accept an invitation to our weekly Bachelor Officers Quarter Saturday bash. I can remember bouncing around my quarters that Saturday trying to will the clock to move faster so I could see her again. One of the indelible memories of my life is when she opened the door as I arrived to pick her up, again with those hypnotic eyes. We spent the entire evening barely a hand width apart as the usual Saturday bacchanalia swirled around us.

I couldn’t get enough of this lady so I asked her out for the next night to dinner at the Fort Amador Officers’ Club – something I’d never done with a fairly extensive list of Panamanian ladies I had dated before. We just couldn’t seem to get close enough to each other. I parked my car on the banks of the Panama Canal and after dinner as we sat in the car with the moonlit canal flowing by, out of the blue I asked her to marry me. To my immense delight she said yes although I think we were both a little stunned at both the question and the response. I can only say it felt right and the past thirty three years have more than redeemed the wisdom of that snap decision.

Of Course the PanaGals Were There

My Wife's Brother and Sister

The next few months were spent convincing her family and mine that we were not completely crazy. Her somewhat reticent father told me I had to learn Spanish before the wedding but her mother was the toughest nut to crack. Somehow I convinced them both their daughter was in semi-safe hands and we were married four months later.

We’re about to embark on a new phase of our life together as I approach the end of my useful work career and I find myself really looking forward to passing those remaining years with this lady capable of such energy and love. 

Frigid Front Yard Today

Back Yard

Diabolical Revenge

Apparently my infernal driveway from the abyss took serious exception to my comments from yesterday. I woke to find that for the first time this winter a snow storm actually passed to the south of us instead of depositing at least a few inches of snow. I strolled down my haunted path all fat and happy at the prospect of granting a day of rest to my faithful snow blower.

I reached the snow cave that is the bottom of the driveway when my feet shot out from under me. The driveway had insidiously and cleverly masked a solid sheet of ice from yesterday’s melt which looked just like the rest of the asphalt I just walked down. I’d like to report my military training immediately kicked in and I executed a perfect parachute landing fall by tucking my chin and twisting to the side. Unfortunately the fall came as such a surprise that it resembled a few of my less artistic parachute landings. After my feet left the earth the next two points of contact with the driveway were my butt and then the back of my head (ahh the memories).

What It Should Have Looked Like

Once I confirmed I wasn’t dead my next concern was ascertaining who had witnessed my less than graceful fall. Here’s where the snow cave came in handy, well except if I’d actually been hurt. The only people that could possibly have seen it were the across the street neighbors so I may have cost them some spit up coffee. Buddy accompanied me for my pratfall and seemed concerned until I started moving again at which point he created some more yellow snow to mark the spot and speed up my attempt to regain my feet.

The Reality

This collision with mortality was further enhanced this morning when I saw a message on my blog from yesterday in which my helpful brother in law pointed out that I (we) was approaching my seventh decade and not the sixth as I had stated. The Cantankerous Friend, always willing to add his life affirming outlook, quickly chimed in pointing out how old I was getting. Life’s all about having supportive friends.

My Sister Yesterday

In the extremely good news department my younger sister who took a very nasty fall herself a few weeks ago reported in yesterday that her recovery was on track. Her fiancé posted a picture which shows how much progress she’s made. Hard to believe just a few weeks ago she had a broken nose, facial lacerations and underwent spinal surgery. She comes from tough stock.

I’ve decided to take a more positive outlook towards the winter. I’m going to will it out of existence. I’m going to take pictures of both the front and back yards each morning and post them here in the hopes to show an ongoing eradication of snow as it melts. My Cali-daughter is due for a visit next week and I’ll get her to show me how to create one of those gif thangs when the grass eventually reappears, unless this is the start of a new ice age. I ran across this video which shows how much fun we’re having up here in the snow capitol of the United States – lest I forget.

Front Yard

Back Yard

Enough

It’s gotten so the day is not complete without an extended stay with that gateway to the netherworld known as my driveway. Apparently I’ve become too adept at clearing the damned thing because overnight the winter came up with a heretofore unused weapon from its arsenal. This diabolical weapon neutralized my greatest ally – the snow blower. We received our standard four inches of snow overnight but winter then threw in a couple hours of freezing rain followed by a few more hours of actual rain.

My Driveway

This resulted in a sloppy mess which the snow blower made a gallant but unsuccessful effort at moving but it was just too heavy for my redoubtable ally. I resorted to using the snow blower as a snow plow. I would get a running start and ram the snow which since it was sitting on a coating of ice and water would slide to the side. This worked for a little bit until the piles were too heavy for the machine to move. The rest of the job was old fashion elbow grease which I learned is a commodity not as quickly or generally available to a body rapidly closing in on its sixth decade. The town helped by plowing a huge pile of slush at the bottom of the hellish portal. A school bus then got stuck on the hill and no less than six different plows came by to re-create the pile each time I had moved it. Panama is looking incredibly good at this point.

Happy Cali-Daughter With Her New T-Shirt

WingMan is back in residence in Los Angeles and I know a certain daughter of mine is extremely pleased with that development. He was a celebrity guest DJ at an LA club last night where he was charged with playing Emo music. I’ve got to be completely honest with you – I had to look up what that meant. Here’s what I found:

Emo /ˈiːmo/ is a style of rock music characterized by expressive, often confessional, lyrics. It originated in the mid-1980s hardcore punk movement of Washington, D.C., where it was known as "emotional hardcore" or "emocore" and pioneered by bands such as Rites of Spring and Embrace.

I’m still confused but so glad WingMan is back on station.

WingMan Last Night

I was cleaning up the desktop on my work computer yesterday as I have a bad habit of throwing the project of the moment and assorted documents up there for ease of availability. This means the view gets kind of crowded after a couple months as the important icons are snowed under (that theme again!) by the myriad OBE documents. While doing this I discovered a picture from my son’s wedding to the ABFA and on a whim used it as the new background for my desktop.

The New Desktop Background
(from L)WingMan, Cali-Daughter, ABFA, Favorite Son, Tropical Wife

In a lonely winter where I really need serial morale boosts this turned out to be just the ticket. It brought back fond memories of that delightful day and I’m now constantly confronted with the faces of the people I cherish most in the world. As I look into each of them (ignoring the brute on the far right) I can’t help but smile and realize how blessed I am to be associated with such remarkable people. It’s also nice to remember there is green grass somewhere under all this white stuff.

Winds of Change in Focus

Another four to six inches of snow over Sunday night and it seemed like such a paltry amount after the February extravaganza. Everybody went about their business yesterday without even mentioned the storm. I went out in the morning to spend my customary hour with the driveway from hell and had it in pristine condition as I left for work. Since temperatures were going to reach just above freezing I thought I was golden. I forgot the object lesson this winter has hammered relentlessly since the end of January. It’s never over.

Buddy on the Now Frozen Driveway From Hell Last Evening
The Post on the Right is the edge of the Driveway
The Post on the Left is the Snow Shovel Embedded in the Drift

As I was driving home I noticed the winds had returned in serious force and the first niggling thoughts of fear crept into my consciousness – what would I find when I entered the diabolical driveway from perdition? While it wasn’t the worse windblown snow I’ve experienced over the last month – it ranks right up there. There were three foot drifts over half the length of the driveway and the higher temperatures created a level of slush which was now rapidly freezing as the temperatures nosedived. The wind had packed the snow so tightly that I had to break up the drifts with a snow shovel before the snow blower could handle it. Oh and the winds continued to howl relentlessly – kind of a microcosm of what most New Englanders have been through recently. As I pushed the machine through the cloud of blowing snow (in March for God’s sake) my thoughts sped south. My conviction that my elder winters will be spent on a beach in Panama and not doing this was supremely fortified. Since I needed a serious morale boost after another hour and a half in the failing light of yesterday I watched the following video of what transpired a month ago in Arizona and suddenly felt so much warmer. Tough not to go all misty eyed when you watch the competing views of that fateful last couple of truly SUPER minutes.

I spent a long time on the phone last night with the tropical wife and made some major decisions about our future. It’s too early to talk about them here but I suddenly find myself a lot more excited about the prospects. I’m so proud of that little bundle of energy and can’t wait to get her back north, she truly and inevitably – rocks!

Since we’re getting more snow tonight (seriously?!) I moved dateless date night to last night and saw the movie – Focus. This is a Will Smith vehicle and he’s ably supported by Margot Robbie the unforgettable wife of the Wolf of Wall Street. Smith is excellent as always but labors under the pressure of a character who’s a really bad guy. Smith is probably the most likable actor in cinema today but here he plays a con man who orchestrates thefts at major social events. This type movie only works, at least for me, when the con men are ripping off guys that deserve to be victimized – someone lower on the loathsome scale than the thieves. There’s a few cute twists thrown in but I couldn’t get past the feeling these guys deserve to be incarcerated. Great chemistry between Smith and Robbie elevated it though above those thoughts. I should have loved it, what with skimpily clad women and exotic locales, but I only liked it. 

Leonine Arrival

So Much Fun with These Two This Past Weekend

The infernal winter kept up its reputation for demonic weekends by ushering March in with characteristic ferocity. The winter may just be losing a bit of its fighting weight though because we only got six inches and today temperatures may actually get above freezing for a couple hours. My wife is getting nervous as her return is less than two weeks away (cue cheering section). She says she won’t come back if the snow isn’t melted but I objected to a June return.

Then They Were Gone

Yesterday was already a down day before the snow made its inevitable return. I had to say goodbye to my son and the ABFA who’d generously donated most of their weekend to relieve my rural loneliness. My son didn’t escape without Buddy engaging in one more round of ring around the kitchen island chasing. Once they departed for home I jumped into the Sunday chores of clothes washing, grocery shopping, and couch potato consolidation duties.

But This Helped

I scored a huge coup at the grocery store almost accidently. I wandered by the meat counter – moth to the flame kind of thing – when I noticed a stack of huge, thick porterhouse steaks. Since these are usually thirty bucks a pop I generally pass them by. I glanced down to find they were on sale for only eight dollars! They’re probably infested with mad cow disease but I was not to be denied and was shortly the proud owner of two. Buddy circled the stove like a shark when I was broiling the first and I was forced to set up a series of obstacles to keep this well-known counter-climber away from the prize.

As the snow swirled I took up couch potato duties and immersed myself once again in the wicked delight of the new season of House of Cards which appeared on Netflix this week. Kevin Spacey and the Princess Bride continue their roles as the diabolical president and first lady. There’s none even remotely redeemable in the cast of characters and since we’re dealing with Washington politicians – completely believable. I knocked out the first three hours of the new season last night and I know what I’m going to be doing for the rest of the week. Spacey is mesmerizing.

Resurrected Bliss

My normal weekend of solitude was decisively vanquished yesterday when I awoke in a house inhabited by at least one of my kids. My son and I followed the bachelor code of mumbled good mornings and some Sports Center before heading out to watch a horror movie (see below for how that went) before the saner influence of the ABFA arrived.

Hanging With the ABFA and Son

The ABFA arrived in the late afternoon with her parents. They’d spent the morning out snow shoeing in what used to be Benson’s Wild Animal Farm – an iconic destination of my youth. We were soon gathered around my son’s IPad and some snacks that had the Wonder Pooch in hot pursuit while son and ABFA explained some of the details of the our joint May cruise to Bermuda. The parental units are all rookies when it comes to ocean liners so they regaled us with some inside tips from their experiences. My wife joined us from Panama via FaceTime before she departed for some Joron Zepeda dance floor time.

Having Ocean Lining Explained to Us

We adjourned to Chuck’s Steakhouse for an extremely enjoyable dinner where we were also joined by my Rhode Island sister and Brother in Law. My son immediately latched on to his uncle to discuss the vagaries of Latino power hitters incapable of hitting a curve ball and their subsequent Far East adventures. The rest of us compared notes on the winter from the seventh level of hell as my sister showed her son practicing parachute landing falls from her second floor roof when he was supposed to be removing snow from said roof.

Too Much Fun Hanging With These Guys

As with all these type gatherings time seemed to go into overdrive. We spent two hours at Chuck’s but it seemed to be over in a flash. My son and ABFA returned home with me while the rest departed for their home. I feel blessed that such splendid people took time out of their lives to help relieve my spouseless condition and inject some family time into the equation. The excellent food sent downrange necessitated some vegetative state time on the family room couch where my son was less than impressed with Birdman but I got to hang out with them just the same.

Dinner at Chuck's

Earlier in the day the horror movie we took in, The Lazarus Effect, was just this side of terrible. I’d watch Olivia Wilde hang wallpaper and she’s the only redeeming thing about this failed film. The director apparently shared my fascination with Ms. Wilde because we were treated to close-ups of her face that only her dermatologist should administer.

She plays a scientist trying to bring the dead back to life and succeeding with a dog before she dies in an accident and, you guessed it, her boyfriend uses the system to bring her back. She comes back all Lucy-like without the redeeming social skills, apparently something came back with her. The first half of the movie works but falls completely apart in the second when we should be reaping the benefits of the setup. Still I got to hang out with my favorite fellow horror movie fan, so I had that going for me.

Meanwhile, Somewhere in Texas