Daily Archives: March 17, 2013

Weather +Climate

Winter on the First Day of Spring

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                                         Bloodroot Moon

It has come to that brittle point in any winter, the time when it seems to stretch on and on and on.  Snow tonight, perhaps 2-4 inches.  Then drops to single digit lows for three days in a row.  The high for the first day of spring 18.  The low 4. Outsiders to the north cannot understand, but this makes us happy.  Last year on this date the temperature was 80.  80.

There was no yearning for the end of winter.  No, a fear that winter might be gone pervaded our region.  Had we become a northern latitude Indianapolis?  What did we do in our gardens in March?  Most Marches we still have snow on the ground like we do now.

Yes, as we age those slick sidewalks give us pause.  But what gives us more pause is the northward march of what we’ve always considered southern temperatures.  In March.  We’re used to hot.  We get up in the 100’s from time to time, more recently.  We put up with it the way southern folk endure a spell of 50 or 60 degree weather.  Unhappily.

Cabin fever, that claustrophobic I’ve been in the house way too long feeling, that hits us now?  That’s the brittle point I referred to in the first paragraph.  We all know it at one level or another.  Well this northerner, and I’m sure I’m not alone, would not trade cabin fever for fevered temperatures in March.  It just doesn’t feel right.

Dogs, Holidays

Erin Go Bar

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                                              Bloodroot Moon

St. Patrick’s day at Pappy’s Bar.  We went, stopping by for a brunch at Pappy’s, to get dogfood.  In Pappy’s the bartender had shamrock suspenders, a leprechaun hat with shamrocks and sunglasses, on top of the hat, clear with green lights blinking within the frame.  A waitress, a superannuated sort, had a tiny yellow hat with a green flower and a green t-shirt tuxedo, pressed out far enough in front to provide a handy cushion if she should tip over.

At the end of the bar sat two young women, mid-twenties, sunglasses, eating eggs and sausage while tossing back Bloody Marys.  Next to us sat a younger couple, maybe early fifties, thin and fit looking.  She had on a Honolulu Harley-Davidson tee-shirt and a sad look, not sad today, necessarily, but a look that said life didn’t hold much sparkle for her.  He smiled, took a napkin and cleaned up the water after the bartender had wiped down the bar.  “It was wet,” he said.

Kate ordered the senior special and I got cornbeef hash and eggs in honor of the traditional St. Patrick’s day meal.

We took the last seats in the bar and there was quite a line waiting to eat in the restaurant portion.  This was at noon on Sunday.  A few folks had green tinted liquor drinks in highball glasses, but I saw no green beer.

The sign read March 17, 1992.  We check I.D.  I was 45 in 1992.

Art and Culture, Dreams, Family, Travel

Oh, man.

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                                                      Bloodroot Moon

Oh, man.  Staying up late no longer has the romance it used to have, or else the way I feel after, like this morning, has simply become intolerable.  Whatever I don’t like the feeling, jangly, edgy, a bit morose.

Had a dream last night where someone tried to steal my laptop.  While I had it in my hands.  I cried out, “Stop that!” and flung my arms up, waking myself up.  Pre-travel jitters I imagine.

Now when I travel, or at least prior to travel, I have a period, sometimes intense, of not wanting to go.  Not wanting to leave the predictable comforts of home for the uncertainty of the road, the hassles, the physical demands.  Once I leave the house this all wanes and then again I delight in travel.  The strangeness of it.  The oddities.  Even the hassles, so long as they don’t involve running for airplanes.

My family was born to travel.  Mom went to Europe as a WAC during WWII.  Dad traveled happily and often within the US with the occasional trip to Canada.  Once, even, to Singapore.  Mark has traveled the world since college or close thereafter.  Mary moved to Malaysia many years ago and both still wander.  Mary just returned to Singapore from Valencia and England.  Mark toured Saudi Arabia over his break.

Wanderlust, I suppose.  A sense that the present moment, the home, needs the occasional view from afar.  A desire to see what’s over the next hill.  In the next valley.  Around the next bend.  There is, too, at least for me, gaining a clear sense of my Self as stranger in this world, one alone while living with others.  This existential isolation hides often at home, the quotidian a salve for it.

So, Washington, D.C.  I was last there during a layover for a train home from Savannah, Georgia.  I went to the National Gallery that day; I’ll go again this week.