Monday, February 18, 2008

Local girl becomes weather-induced shut-in.

Greetings from balmy Wisconsin!!
Since this photo was taken, the pile of snow behind Local Girl and Devil Dog has grown by another foot.

To my readers in northern states: Doesn’t all this snow we’re getting make you feel like a kid again (well, minus the shoveling and driving in it parts)? Because when you were a small, short person, those snowbanks were like mountains! And now as somewhat taller adults, they are mountains once again! Remember how much fun a day in those snowbanks could be? Clambering over them, sliding down them on plastic saucers, arranging them into forts, hiding behind them during epic snowball battles…forget that nasty business about them sucking your boots off, or that one time you could have sworn the snowbank had teeth, that you saw it winking at you and licking its chops, that it actually snaked a snowy foot out to trip Jimmy Kohlman before eating his moon boot AND sock and then it gave Sara Welsh a facewash that made a pound of raw hamburger look like the gold standard for complexions?

To my readers in southern states: I’m sure there have been one or two moments in your life, perhaps in your youth, when you caught yourself thinking or saying, “I should like to see this snow substance they speak of “Up North.” But then you promptly forgot all about it and crawled back into the hammock strung between the two palm trees near your backyard pool.
I just love that story.

And here's what I love even more: when an inch of snow falls in certain climes and the local stores sell out of bottled water, batteries, generators, canned goods, and propane tanks and the snow melts before everyone gets back home, which takes an hour longer than usual because everyone is driving like marbles and banana peels have been scattered all over the road surface.

But back to the feet and feet of snow that we’ve received to date this winter. As I wrote this blog, we were expecting another foot of snow before nightfall (plus freezing rain and sleet and giant ice crystals the size and shape of He-Man’s magic sword). When so much snow is falling or anticipated to fall, your ability to just get out and about takes a nose dive, unless you LIKE frostbite and wet socks and calling tow trucks to tug your risk-taking ass out of the ditch. When the weather forces you to be housebound, terrible things can happen, such as:

Your husband is playing a new game on the Xbox. And at first, you think, Gee, that music is so soothing and relaxing! But don’t worry—this is just because the first fighting sequence hasn’t happened yet. There are fighting sequences every four seconds. After two hours of this, your right eye will begin to twitch, and your right hand will begin to make an involuntary stabby-motion. It’s a reflex, really, and at first you attribute it to chopping too many carrots for dinner (Because, oh, I don’t know, you eat lots of carrots when it snows), but then you notice the stabby-motion speeds up when you get near the XBox. And guess what? You can’t leave!! BECAUSE YOU ARE HOUSEBOUND.

You have a bottle of red truck wine in the kitchen. As you watch a movie called Sunshine (which is not blown up anyone’s ass…it’s actually a fantastic sci-fi flick starring the delicious Cillian Murphy), the wine begins to call to you in a soft siren. Small dogs start barking two miles away. So you heed the siren’s call and pour a glass. Or two. Or three. Soon enough, you find yourself weeping upstairs as you put away laundry. Your husband comes up to hug you and declare, “You get like this every year right about now.” Which you violently deny; really, you got this way just this once, just tonight, BECAUSE YOU ARE HOUSEBOUND.

(And drank a lot of wine, but whatev.)

All of that wine wakes you up at four thirty-seven the next morning. You arise, because your bladder urgently needs to be voided. (Speaking of, who came up with that one? “Voiding” the bladder. “This bladder is null and void in Tennessee, Maine, and New Mexico.”) After the voiding, you decide to take a vitamin and some aspirin. You don’t have a headache yet, but you can feel one weighing its options in the back of your skull, deciding whether or not to submit its application. You return to bed. Your husband, sleeping so peacefully when you woke up, has decided it is now time to Commence with the Snoring. Your right nostril has decided it too wants to join the program now in progress, and begins making killdeer calls with every exhalation. Two and a half hours later, you finally twitch off to sleep, your right hand making the stabby-motion again. When you get up later that morning, you think: what a great day to do some badly-needed shopping! But when you pull up the radar on weather underground, you realize you can’t. BECAUSE YOU WILL BE HOUSEBOUND.

20 comments:

  1. word.

    winter has outstayed it's welcome.

    ReplyDelete
  2. so funny, you. every damn time.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ha! Yes, me too. Hermit. Too much snow.

    ReplyDelete
  4. When you say "housebound" it makes me think you're a morbidly obese agoraphobic, which makes this post even funnier.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous5:46 PM

    Wow. I can't believe how much snow you have! Don't kill each other. It's illegal, and then you'll be lonely, cooped up in the house all by yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wine should be delivered by the government during winters like this, along with aspirin.

    Hang in there!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I know Monnik! Hi Monnik! Okay, I'm back. I'm always so surprised when I go someplace new and there's someone I know. If you think I'm jumbled now, you should see me at cocktail parties.

    Why am I writing you? Oh! I know! I know!

    Thanks for your comment and welcome at the Deb Ball. So nice of you!

    If you need a review of your book, I can hand you off to someone whose site gets a ton of exposure. And I can review you at BabyCenter also. Let me know. I'll probably do a "Deb Ball Roundup" post or something like that.

    Email me at Andrea.Paventi@gmail.com

    Or leave word at my blog. But email is better.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous9:02 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This has been an insane winter! And you make it so funny. This cracked me up.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous9:10 PM

    Sorry you've got cabin fever. We rarely get snowbound, but the moss growing between the toes is depressing as hell.
    PS- MORE DEVILDOG!!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. How responsible are you! I would never think to take a vitamin at 4:30 in the morning after a night of drinking.

    ReplyDelete
  12. we haven't gotten a good snow yet, i need one, just one. because i'm going to put snow in my dad's pants.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Housebound...makes it sound like constipation. And I guess it's quite a bit like that, huh?
    I live in one of those cities that shuts the Hell down when snow is forecast. We got three inches of fluffy, easy to remove snow and they closed our schools!
    I think our school superintendent has chionophobia AND agoraphobia.
    I just learned that word....chionophobia....I think I will use it again...chionophobia.....

    ReplyDelete
  14. HA! jeezuzz... okay, you need to come stay with us for the remainder of the Winter.

    And "voiding"? yes, I completely agree. and I Avoid voiding so much so at night, by the time I have to go, I could hit the toilet from where I'm lying in bed...or at least the ceiling.

    And we drove to Ohio for the holidays. Yeah. We hit TWO blizzards on the way back and almost rolled the car and died. But, hey...we didn't. And that's what counts.

    So, shall I make up the guest room?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Housebound always sounds so GOOD....until you are. Come down souf, where housebound only happens when it ICES.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Oh, I wish I was down south, lounging on MY hammock! We have not gotten as much snow as you but enough for me. Enough ice and sleet too. Way too much.

    ReplyDelete
  17. LOL!

    "You don’t have a headache yet, but you can feel one weighing its options in the back of your skull, deciding whether or not to submit its application."

    That is the most perfect description of waking with a hangover headache that I have ever read.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hang in there, I saw spring clothes at the mall yesterday. It was snowing when I saw them, but I am hopeful that it will be here someday SOON!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Devil Dog and the Naughty Wombat should have a playdate.

    Once the snow melts, and they can actually run around again that is.

    Cheers darling!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Jeez, I wish I had seen this weeks ago. I'm ready to go insane. Seriously, I'm about to drive to the airport and get on the next plane to somewhere that is over 50 degrees. I cannot take it anymore. But I can and I will, so I'm a liar. I too watched Sunshine during a housebound stint. It freaked me out. Seriously.

    You're great. Again, can't wait for the book. Wish I had it now, in fact.

    ReplyDelete