April Blizzards Bring May Wizards?

The snow was almost gone…

For the last week or so, I was sure that global warming had won out and winter was completely over.
Just about the time I was going to contact Nick, my snow/lawn guy, to look into getting the lawn fed and seeded now that spring was here, the weatherman on TV said more snow coming our way.

Shit.

…and then it started up again.

Well, it wasn't really a blizzard, but it was a good seven inches of snow. It started late Monday evening and lasted into Tuesday afternoon. By sundown, everything was white once again and things were cold. I headed to bed and, like some nights, I had trouble getting to sleep until late.

Around 4:45 Wednesday morning there was lots of grinding and scraping outside my bedroom window. Nick had shown up early to do the plowing. He's got a big ol' snow plow on the front of his truck and the biggest snow shovel I've ever seen and a very loud, gas-powered snow blower. I'm sure the neighbors loved it.

Dan Schneider

Nick has a full-time job and does the maintenance work on his own time, so I would rather have him show up before heading off to work than arriving after work, leaving me stranded all day. Sure, I can get in and out of the garage through piles of snow, but control and accuracy suffer. I also had a couple people coming over later in the day, and giving them a clear driveway in which to park was a nice touch.

Diane Breese

At noon, Dan Schneider (who is reading the part of Adolph Eichmann) and Diane Breeser (reading his interrogator) came by the house for the final rehearsal before this week's reading on Saturday. I think we have things lined up nicely.

Diane had a mock-up of the play bill, and we ran over entrances and exits (about as far as blocking goes in a reading). Via e-mail, we have finally located someone to lead the post-play discussion. I started by contacting the rabbi at the local synagogue. From there we went through about a half dozen people who were interested in it but, for one reason or another, weren't able to do it.

Yours truly

Even for a reading, there are things that have to be coordinated, so I arranged for someone else to lead the semimonthly adult group at the Center. That way, I have all afternoon to coordinate with the folks at the Unitarian church next door, where we're having the reading.

This post card is over 100 years old.

One of the reasons I bought this house for my home was because it was plopped in the middle of a very holy neighborhood. We've got the Unitarian Universalists next door, the catholic high school across the street, The Evangelical Lutherans catty-cornered to the south (with a catholic church down the block) and the Presbyterians just north across Cass Street.

The Evangelical Lutheran church has its original bells, and they clang on Sundays at 8 and 10:15 a.m., as well as other days at 2 and 5:30 p.m. It gives the neighborhood an urbane quality I wasn't suspecting in La Crosse.

This is what I see from my back yard.

One of the other reasons I chose this place was the beautiful old homes that make up this area of town. The timber barons of the area built their mansions on Cass Street in the late 1800s-early 1900s. A stroll down the street and around the park reveals some of the loveliest midwestern architecture I've seen. I will have to make a photo-pilgrimage and snap some shots of them when all the green returns.

When I went into the Center this afternoon to do my 4-8 p.m. shift, things were just hopping. We had three walk-ins (unheard of; we normally get 0-0.2 people on average in the evenings). There were also a couple of new volunteers ready for their orientation session.

And the back yard with fat snowflakes falling.

Deb was there for the new recruits, and Aleisha, our director of outreach, was there with her teen-aged daughter. I wisely retreated to the lounge and puttered on the computer, nodding off several times because that's what old farts do when they're bored.

Andrew (the wonderful young fellow who's revamping the Center's computer network) was there helping to train a new volunteer (we're up to 30!) whose name I've already forgotten. Since they had the desk covered quite effectively, I took off about 15 minutes early and came home.

Tomorrow, honest to God, I've got to do some laundry. It's very deceptive having a laundry chute on each floor. Dirty towel: toss it in the chute. Dirty clothes: toss 'em in the chute. One day I open up the closet and there's no more pants; open the underwear drawer to find it empty. And when one wanders into the laundry room in the basement, there is a small mount of fetid fiber and tainted textiles.

Where the hell did that come from? I just did laundry four day a-… no, a week a-…no two weeks ago. Hm. Maybe three. No wonder all the underwear's dirty! So I plan a day of puttering around the house between calls to the basement to fill-empty-fill-empty the washer and dryer. Four, five, six loads.

The biggest effort of the chore is shlepping all the cleaned clothes up two flights of stairs to return everything to the closet and dresser. If they could plan an easy way to get the grimy garments to the laundry room, why didn't they rig up something to take the fresh laundry back up to the second floor?

I want my flying car. I want my robot maid. I want my monorail. I was promised these things as a child, proffered to us all by Mr. Disney and his Land. Okay, forget the car. And the monorail. They don't do laundry. But robot maid, that's something to reach for!