Bad Hair Day

Bad hair day? Only, it's not my hair. with all the snow and the changing times at which visitors are scheduled to arrive, I couldn't recall if I made an appointment for 700AM. I knew there was no six, negating the hypothesis that too much snow shoveling had rendered me brain-dead ... only that due to advanced neuropathy, the message had not yet arrived at my prefrontal cortex .. 50 cent way to say that I've become a cockadoodle-doo away from a rooster without a head!

Philadelphia, a friend noticed, looks like Buffalo where our families spent much of the late 60's and early 70's.Didn't feel so bad, then.  I guess if there are enough people around you blowing Woostock Mixture .... blown snow and blown dope .... shoveling seems to pass in an enjoyable if attenuated flash. It's different in the Last Quarter. The Prophets tell you "you're gonna die" if you shovel that wet stuff ... We call it the "widow maker."

My dreams are frightening and tend to fly off in the middle of the night when I wake up with "horror" and "atrial fibrillation." Not certain which way the arrow points .... Frightening Pavor Nocturnis dreams yielding atrial fib or vice versa. My young Cardiologist assures me that each of these snow events acts like a cardiac tread mill test ... I stress my heart ... if I don't keel over ... chances are that the Ole Pump is A-OK.If not, he'll fill my appointment with another guy around his Father's or Grandfather's age and whisper sweet NOTHINGS in his ear.

Many men come and visit me ... I suppose? half my visitors. They are struggling either to enter, to stay or to leave the role of Pater Familias ... of the guy who knows how to do it all .... like he was one of these special-ops types wearing all white and carrying Kalishnakovs and RPGS in their half track trek in the Northwest Territories ... trying to find the headquarters of Icy Finger and Snow Job ... shoveling, driving in snow, keeping the burner working and the fireplace full of split and air-dried maple ... knowing exactly what to do when Junior is poised to crash into a tree while her Daddy is thinking about how well he looks in his new down jacket ....

Can you imagine the irony ... CAN YOU DIG IT .... living in what used to be the Presby Widows Home and shoveling heavy snow to try to make certain that no beds go empty.

Hey! It's hard nowadays to figure out which are widows, nevermind which are Presby's.