How I Spent My Snow Day

The following is only a narrative in the loosest sense. There is no story arc, no recurring themes. It is pretty much just loosely connected plot that I've strung together to avoid growing mad from 48 hours trapped in my house. In that regard, it reads a lot like the script to any of the Star Wars prequels. If only I had some computer graphic skills...I could make millions...

To start, Isabel and I stared out the window for about a half hour debating whether or not our immortal souls would be in jeopardy if we did not attend Mass today. The snow out here was pretty bad, and our parking lot was still covered in about an inch of the white stuff despite the best efforts of the plows.
We then considered that even if we could make it out of the parking lot without damaging anyone else's property, we had no idea what the roads would be like between our community and the nearest Church, which is a fifteen-twenty minute drive away.
Ultimately, I think we decided that it must not be reasonably prudent or safe to drive to Church if we could debate the safety and prudence of driving to Church for over a half hour.
This meant that the next hour or so was spent digging our cars out.

I'm discovering that winter in the country is not what Norman Rockwell promised it would be.

From then, it was on to grading exams. Would you believe that my school did not cancel yesterday's exams despite over a foot of snowfall? Madness. If I were tenured, I would wave an angry finger about campus and give steely glares to administrators. As I am not tenured, though, I will merely gripe pseudonymously on the Internet.

At some point, I suppose I ate lunch...but since lunch probably just consisted of several swipes at the Christmas cookies, I'm not positive when that actually occurred.

Then Isabel decided that we could get some really scenic photographs from the top of a nearby hill. What we hadn't anticipated was that our fingers would be too cold to actually manipulate the camera or that we would be too frozen to bother determining any kind of composition. So we hustled back home.
I was a bit envious, though, of the small children who were romping about in the wide open snow-blanketed fields. Growing up in the city, we had just enough lawn for about an hour's worth of snow play before all the stuff was trodden down and slushed-up. Sledding down a five-foot slope to a concrete sidewalk didn't really have makings of Norman Rockwell painting either. Actually, maybe it did.

As the day progressed, I ultimately settled on watching the 1 Henry IV episodes of the BBC series The Age of Kings. The performance was slightly disrupted since I played the episodes in the wrong order (I found it very odd to start the play with Act 3, scene 1, but I at first assumed it was a provocative directorial choice). This is a very old, black and white broadcast of two-hour long versions of the history plays, but the play very well and you barely notice any cuts. Of particular note is the casting of Sean Connery as Hotspur--he does a great job. And it's one of the best versions of the tavern role-play scene between Falstaff and Harry that I've every scene. There was also an uncanny incident when my father called me at precisely the moment that King Henry IV finally confronts his absentee son Prince Harry. You could almost hear that "Cat's in the Cradle" song playing in the background.

A little after this point, Isabel announced that I was no longer allowed out of the man-cave due to present-wrapping...so when Shakespeare concluded, I was reduced to watching "The Revenge of Cobra" G.I.Joe miniseries that was included in a recent purchase I had made.

It's been a while since I've watched the old G.I.Joe cartoon, but I was left with a distinct impression that the writers didn't have much concept of military protocol or procedure. For instance, I had completely forgotten that Shipwreck was literally picked up by the Joe team in a bar. I mean, the guy is wearing a Navy uniform...but he claims to be a mercenary. Did he go a.w.o.l. or something?
And the Cobra villains laugh an awful lot...pretty much at the end of every complete sentence, ha, ha, ha! What's with that? ha, ha, ha! They have a completely overactive sense of irony, ha, ha, ha!
And I had forgotten how gratingly annoying the battlecries are in this show. The Joes and Cobra shout out their respective team names before and after engaging in virtually any physical activity whatsoever. It begins to sound as compulsive and neurotic as the Smurfs using their racial epithet as an adjective, or Snarf using his name as a nervous tic (or are we to assume he was named Snarf because of the tic, like Gollum being named for his gutteral coughs?).

Dinner with Isabel consisted of stir fry and spring rolls. She did most of the cooking tonight. I supplied witty banter. It is, after all, the best of seasonings.

From thence, I banished my wife from the man cave so I could commence with the wrapping of her presents (shhhh...don't tell her). This never goes well. It is unfortunate, because she is very adept at gift arrangement and packaging (one might say she puts the "present" in presentation). I, however, am the opposite. Presents from me come encased in varying thicknesses of creases and tape. This year, I experimented with the bow. Really, it's more like I experimented on the bow...because none of the mutant creatures generated by my efforts resemble anything like the attractive loops and curls one might expect in a Norman Rockwell painting...but, then again, maybe they do.

Comments

[Isabel]

I am glad that the incredible salad that I made for lunch today (replete with organic vinaigrette) was so memorable.

[Peter Terp]

Indeed, it was...I just didn't want to publish my wife's virtues too broadly.

Oh, and another weird thing I forgot to mention, not only did my dad call me during the Henry/Harry exchange, but my sister called me in the middle of "Revenge of Cobra" to ask me to appraise my brother-in-law's G.I.Joe comic book collection. It's like my whole family had some kind of weird telepathic connection yesterday...that, or they bugged my house the last time they visited.

[Akh Ari]

Oh, what a fate! Being snowbound together with one's beloved (and she the beautiful, gracious, and talented Isabel)!

I'm sorry you couldn't get to Mass, but I hope you're not being scrupulous about it - I am quite sure any pastor would recognize abnormally dangerous roads as the sort of grave inconvenience that excuses from obligation.

[Lindsay]

I was pouty about not being able to go to Mass, but two feet of snow was too imposing for much debate beyond that.

Maybe your present-wrapping deficiency is a man thing. I have wrapped my dad's presents every year except this one: he and my mom both went gift bag crazy. I wrapped. Mine aren't great, but they're shrouded with love, and everyone knows unwrapping is way more fun that pulling out of bags.

[Peter Terp]

I can't believe I let these comments go a month without re-comment.

A.A. -- While I certainly have no qualms being trapped with my wife, one has to take into account being trapped with one's wife and her dissertation. It's kind of like the set up for a horror movie where the hero brings his beloved to a quiet cabin in the woods only to have it besieged by some diabolic force.

Lindsay--Of course, there's always the gift-wrapped presents in the gift bag scenario. It's like a holiday cornucopia.
Of course, Isabel is somewhat cursed to be married to a guy who prefers cheap presents in bulk...so she generally ends up wrapping three or four presents to every one I wrap for her.

[Akh Ari]

Oh, no - that does sound scary!

I hope the monster can be tamed enough that Valentine's Day is not spoiled!