<BJWL Griping><Background> BJWL called me while I was in Aspen. When I called her back, she interrupted me to listen to BDL, who was telling her to tell me to notify them when I would next be in Connecticut, because his daughters wanted to get together with me (and CLH). As if, without BDL's prompting, I would not tell my mother and grandmother when I was home? as if I were incapable of getting in touch with the German Shepherds on my own? Or, perhaps, as if BDL and BJWL wanted to keep tabs on our gossiping? or am I being paranoid? Anyway, even if they don't want to know when and how we four talk, I thought BJWL rude to interrupt me, because she has always been so unforgiving about her time and money being wasted when she places the call. Her nickel, she calls it; how long ago did the charge go up to a dime? Fuck my phone bill; what I resent is the double standard. Anyway. BDL pro'ly only wanted to let me know that his daughters liked me; I know the two of them were pleased that we did although I doubt they were pleased at just how well we did get along and what that entailed. But still, The Man is allowed to interrupt, his interruptions being either okay or not a waste of her nickel: hypocrism. </Background>
BJWL called me today. I had called her after I talked to SEM because I figured she might want to send NBM a card also, and she did, but also, as a weather-mongerer, she wanted to know about the blizzard. It had stopped snowing around sunset, about two hours before; it had been snowing since before noon the day before, so I think BJWL thought we all might die. We had not only water and heat, but electricity too, and the telephone, and even cable. We lacked nothing except space. So anyway she called today to see if we had died in the 24-hour interim.
Today was beautiful, typically post-storm Denver. The temperature felt like it was in the 50s when we went out frolicking around 9:30; the sun blazed yellow and the sky blazed blue; the mountains and the city dazzled white. At the foot of the little hill where Hill meets Province, we saw a woman sledding down the road. (In this case, "down" is geographically correct, not idiomatically confusing.) We had headed uphill by the time she slid to a stop. But she must have seen my envious watching and so offered me her sled. I eagerly accepted, remembering my sled etiquette just in time to trot down the bit of hill and take it from her.
I carried it back up after my sledding, too, and so carried twice for sledding once, and even if I had thought of that at the time, I hope I would have still done it, ascribing it to proper gratitude. Her name was Paige and her man--why do I assume that? or her brother or friend or neighbor--was snowboarding down the unplowed sidewalk.
I have not sledded since I think 1994, and that was a pathe little attempt when the snow had mostly left Horsebarn Hill. Before that, when SEM lived in Storrs in the winter, we went when there was snow. Now we have snow, at least for a day at a time, but few hills.
My ride was terrific and I careened from one side of the road to the other, tilting up on the curbs like a pinball. Sun, snow, and a steep (for Denver) if not long hill. Glorious. And dangerous, as is right and proper: in addition to the speed of descent and the fact that under the plowed snow was blacktop not grass, it was a road, not just a surface. No one was behind me on Hill Street, and across Province on Hill, a driver waited at the stop sign for me to stop before he attempted to scale the hill. But it was vital I stop before I slid across Province, whose drivers couldn't be expected to see me. I stomped up the hill with Sam, waving at the driver whom I had inconvenienced: "Thanks for waiting!" I need to get a sled. That was a super ride.
RDC and I stomped along the trail, breaking through almost two feet of snow with every step, at least at first. Cross-country skiers and other hikers had made a path, but the chief conqueror of the snow was the sun. We usually finish the walk in less than an hour, but between the stomping and the sledding and the snowballs and the angels and the snowlounges, today it took closer to two hours. It was almost noon when we got home, and in that time, the hill on Florida had melted to unsleddability and the blacktop of the paved biking trail showed through in many places. I wonder how many cross-country skiers were stranded.
And so, when BJWL called again, I told her I'd gone sledding. Sledding is one of those activities whose point she does not grasp, perhaps because there is no point. So she responded, disdainfully, incredulously, "You went sledding?" And BDL was in the background, listening, and piped up, in mock excitement, "Sledding!" And I want to say that if RDC had responded to something I said and interrupted the telephone call like that, she'd have been annoyed. I have long acknowledged that she neither is fair nor aspires to be fair. What still infuriates me is her inconsistency. She is kind to neither her children nor her parents nor most passersby. But for the man, anything.
</Griping>
And why, you ask, do I focus on one minor annoying snag when otherwise the day was wonderful? Clearly it's because I don't accept her God as my personal savior.
I wore contacts lenses when we went out during the snowfall Friday and Saturday and it was great to put my face to the precipitating sky and still be able to see. I guess I haven't noticed that particular stupidity of glasses much because Denver gets so little rain. Now that it's getting colder, I will have to deal with the stupidity of condensation when I go from warm house to cold outside. But I was Good today and wore my sunglasses. Which is mostly okay: if I'd worn contacts I'd've worn non-prescription sunglasses. But I still have no peripheral vision.
I have discovered one advantage of glasses over contact lenses,
although it's minor. It's minor because at home in the evening I've usually
taken out my lenses anyway, but I noticed it because I have been
trying to discover something positive about these stupid unnatural
inconveniences. And I did. I can focus on Blake when he's on my shoulder
at any time of day, rather than only in post-lens eventide. Ha. Wheeeeee.
Good night.
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