Oh, the Weather Outside is...

I try to avoid winter as much as possible. I’ve done this by staying inside. Lately, it seems that some sort of injury waits for me in the frosty air. Like the other day. I stepped outside to find a light frost clinging to the front ramp like barnacles on an old ship hull. I had tossed on my down jacket, the one I wore to Everest, over my flannel PJs to retrieve the thin-as-October-ice newspaper, The Saratogian. Before I could inhale one surprised gulp of air, my feet were over my head. Thump. I knocked whatever remained in my lungs out into the stiff air, the veil of vapor hanging over me like a death shroud. I landed flat on my back. When I thought I laid perfectly still staring at the hubcap of Dad’s Subaru I noticed I was slowly ebbing down the short slope. Shit, that’s going to hurt tomorrow.

And it did. Every damn muscle from my neck to my waist and my triceps – because I made an ill attempt to catch myself on the railings – felt tortured. This caused me to remain inside for another three days before venturing out again for the paper. Now when I do, Dad sitting at the dining room table behind a bowl of cookie-laden cereal and stirring his syrupy tea reminds me to watch my step. Like I’d forget.

And yesterday, the second dusting of the winter caused more injury. A powdered coating annoying rested in the driveway. Since it was Dad’s eighty-fifth birthday, I decided I could help him blast the stuff out of the path of the car. I blew through the fluff as quickly as possible, noting that this is the beginning of the six foot snow bank that will rampart the driveway come February. I managed to lift nothing but white air and in doing so pulled a back muscle. Shit, that is embarrassing. Small wonder I was sore the next day when Dad took me to the Y. All that walking, bike riding and swimming of October and early November rotting on the vine.

You know that Amish heater that has been seen in just about every Sunday’s Parade Magazine since August? Dad ordered one right after Thanksgiving and it arrived on the coldest day of the season, so far. The mercury couldn’t crack the 10 degree line. Wind chill was teeth shattering.

He set the mock fireplace in my old room down in the basement where I immediately set up camp in my own private inferno. If there were a bathroom down stairs, I wouldn’t emerge until it’s time to catch a plane back to Hawaii. But with a little sand on the floor and some Ukulele music, I could almost imagine it despite the frightful weather.