Winter - Bah - Humbug

  This was the view out my front window two days after Christmas. It has only become worse since then with four or was it seven more inches of frozen hell yesterday. My cat might be content to nap in his sun spot, (and he does seem to follow the sun around the house on a winter day) but I am not. Call me spoiled, but I much preferred last winter. No snow to speak of, and tolerable temperatures. What's with the fifteen below zero?  Is this a joke, a Trumpian giggle that we are all supposed to laugh along with? I call bullshit.

  There are those who love the snow. I hear them the week before Christmas, "It looks like a white Christmas."  or "I hope we have snow for the holiday." "I can't wait for snow." My response to them is why? Why do you like snow so much? The problem is that once you turn the snow machine on, you can't turn it off. Only Mother Nature has the keys to the off switch, and I think she likes messing with us. In fact, due to all the crap we are throwing up into a once pristine atmosphere, my best guess is that Mother Nature has a bone to pick with us. I point to Hurricanes Irma, Maria, and Harvey, and the immolation of the West Coast as exhibits A,B,C, and D.

  While I can appreciate the way the world looks, and quiet shushing of the flakes as they fall, snow is really nothing but a pain in the ass. For those who love snow on Christmas, do your relatives have to drive to come and see you? I spent Christmas Day white knuckled as my daughter and and son-in-law traveled further north to his home into more snow on icy highways. For those folks who have family that have remained in the area I guess snow is fine. For the rest of us, not so much.

 If we all had work- from -home jobs and never ran out of bread or milk, snow removal wouldn't be a problem. But most of the world has to drive to whatever job they do, so the snow has to be removed from roads, driveways and sidewalks. I can only subsist on the wilted celery from the holiday Bloody Marys for so long. Sooner or later I have to retrieve the milk and eggs.

 The past couple of years I have employed a plowing service. I used to shovel my own drive, a somewhat Herculean feat as it is a fairly long drive. My favorite part of the shoveling process is getting all the wet, heavy, lumpy stuff out of the mouth of the driveway and having the snow plow come up the road and push another load of wet, heavy, lumpy, stuff back into it. It's kind of like having someone spit in your face.

  Remember that winter a few years ago? The one where we could count on six to eight inches of snow a couple times a week? The winter that recorded so much snow we ran out of places to put it? I used up my personal snow shoveling quota that year. I have employed a plowing service ever since. Once I had the service under contract, it quit snowing. I began to think it was cause and effect. Hire someone you have to pay to remove the stuff, and it won't snow. I thought it was one of those unwritten rules, like if you want it to rain, wash your car. Or clean your carpets and within 24 hours the cat will yak on them.

  Apparently that's not the case. As immediately after confirmation that I was still on the plow out list, it snowed. I also see by the weather report that as night follows day, the cold is following this latest snow incident. More sub zero nights. Those are the nights I worry about my furnace. You see, the furnace is old. Well, it wasn't always old. It was new when I bought this house. I had it installed myself. Since then, I've religiously had it cleaned once a year and replaced the broken parts. A couple years ago, the heat exchanger failed. The furnace guys were ecstatic. Here was their shot to sell me a new furnace. Except that I had kept the paper work from the 2001 installation. On that paper work it clearly stated that the heat exchanger was warrantied for fifteen years. So here it was early January 2016 and I had twenty some days remaining on the warranty. How fortuitous that the furnace Gods* favored me that day. (Furnace Gods are minor household gods that need to be appeased from time to time. I have to explain annually to the furnace guys that the purple stains on the side of the furnace housing are due to the sacrifice of wine I make to that particular god every autumn,) Anyway, last year the circuit board went out.

  "Lady, we'd advise you get a new furnace," so said Furnace Repair Guy. "Your circuit board is out."

  "How much for a new furnace," I asked.

  "$3000 or so."

"How much for a new circuit board?"

 "$450"

 "Uh-huh. Let's see, $450 or $3000? I'll take the circuit board."

  I'm not sure that there is much left to replace on this furnace, we shall see-the extreme cold does put a strain on an old machine. And I'm just talking about me. Never mind the furnace.

  So for all you "I love the snow"people, I have one word for you -- Minnesota.