Feliz Navidad mis Amigos:
“A great silence space holds all of nature in its embrace. It also holds you” ………………………………………………………………………………………Eckhart Tolle
“The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.” …………………………………………………………………………George Carlin
“Louie, I think this is the beginning of beautiful friendship” …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Rick Blaine
You know you are living through a COVID winter in Vermont when:
The fuel delivery man comes and is reluctant to fill the pipe on the little back deck, because of five-foot icicle spears hanging from above waiting to pierce his skull…………………………………….
THE POND looks like an ice rink…. but then again…who knows…. should we walk out?
After a week of sub-arctic temps, it hits 55 and It rains all day Christmas day…four feet of snow comes down from the roofs….and the grass shows up after two weeks…. all is back to as before …. except the streams look like the rushing Colorado River……and you still have to dig out two more feet of rock hard snow from in front of the barn doors-to finally get out the new car that has been stuck inside there for ten days……………………
Your snowbound partner takes a shower and puts on eye shadow for the first time in four days- for a Zoom……and your pheromones start screaming….
You spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day with just the two of you (for the 310th straight day) ….and watch the clock for the next holiday Zoom to start…
You jump up from the couch when the FedEx truck comes up the lane…only to have him (still in shorts, mind you) at the wrong house…
You spend a week with only snow tunnels to get out of your house………
You make day trip to find Texas Bar-B-Que in Vermont…and find it………… in the back of a gas station……
You get dressed to go out and deliver Christmas cookies…and get stuck in four semi-plowed driveways……apparently everyone else has snow tires and does not really care….
You wear the same smelly socks, sweatpants, hoodie and stocking cap around the house for four days……and that feels normal…………….
You start wearing the Queens headbands around your hair disarray…and see Keith Richards in the mirror…….
You drive an hour and a half to get lunch, just for something to do….and Mama Corleone says “no lunch today” ……feh…. pui….
On a frigid night…. you lean over and murmur to your sweetie….” I thought it was you, but it was just the rug” ……….
You order curbside groceries and they send you an e-mail with a massive list of items that are either out of stock or to be substituted…which you know is bullshit…so you have to go in anyway, and shop for all those items (readily available to any set of simian eyes on the shelf) …and then have three follow-up conversations with the store manager about their training program for the teeny-bopper shoppers………………
You run out of books to read….which must be like what it is to kick cold turkey….and when you go to the library to pick up some finally arrived reinforcement orders….you can’t get to the front door over the four feet of snow, and apparently it is unclear whose responsibility it is to move the piles….….so you have to resort to reading your benefactress’ library collection…which is mostly smut…but pretty good anyway….
Your music playing partners are an ancient IPhone and a laptop…but you make music anyway…with your posse and The Prodigal……………………Priceless….
The cable company calls you three days in advance to tell you that your service will go out with the next storm……proactively deflating….
And….on Christmas Eve day the ancient fridge stops working….and you wonder….how are we going to get a masked appliance guru to come to our snowbound house now……or for the foreseeable future…and The Queen goes ballistic thinking about 40 pounds of spoiled, local, organic meats… …and trudges through the four feet of snow to the barn to gather all our known coolers to avert the catastrophe…..and then …it mystically comes back on…..Ho, Ho, Ho…..
You drive around…unsuccessfully……looking for a half-dry place to jog…and put on six layers to go out to The Barn to work out…
And then….you take a drive up Route 100…walk through the silent snow beauty of the Green Mountain National Forrest…and cross the Brandon Pass at 3000 feet …and can see 100 miles of snowbound landscape……all the way to The Adirondacks…..and it’s almost all worth it….
Merry Christmas to all…and to all a good night………Papi
