But The Snow

[Foxvoices]

But the snow...the snow.
When it blew in last week I thought it wouldn't last the night.
It fell for over four hours and stopped at about nine inches. It wasn't even all that cold,
but I only made snow angels once. Now, where is she?
Oh, wait...I guess it's only been about twenty minutes.
She hates the snow...not seeing it, being in it. It happened in Walla Walla back in 1974 when she slipped on the ice and fell on her ***. She wasn't hurt, but she was mad as hell.
Now she only goes out in it for emergencies...and ice cream.
The the next day it fell for another three hours and it came up to a foot. Of course it melts about four inches a day so there's a lot of slush--and it is a pain to drive through, but we really don't get that much up here, any way. It breaks up the monotony of the day after day after day.
The sun broke out today and I'm afraid all the snow will be gone in a day or two.
She won't miss it, though.
She wants the garden cleaned up and the weeds pulled, but she only wants to see it from the window...she won't work in the yard. I need to build a trellis for the front yard, so she can be proud of our house. I guess I should put up that faux picket fence, also, so I can can connect it to the trellis. Oh, yeah, ...the pergola for the front of the garage.
I cut down the plum tree in the corner. It had gotten diseased and was starting to rot from the inside. It had the sweetest plums, and lots of them. She doesn't care so much for fresh fruit...she likes fig newtons. That tree made good shade to cool of that corner of the yard--nice on a hot summer day.
She won't miss it, though.

[blp]

I was enjoying it at first. Then the tone started to seem self consciously modern humdrum demotic to the point of being cloying. There's a lot of it about - notably over in Dave Eggars little club - and I find it irritating because I can't really believe it - a sort of blasé world where, allegedly, nothing's intense or terrible - how gauche that would be - except, of course, it is. Sorry. It is good, of its kind.

I'd change the two thoughs to of courses

[Foxvoices]

I appreciate your reading and commenting. I used to preface this piece with an explanation that it was meant to be taken as an excerpt from a conversation (albeit one-sided). I thought I'd try it sans comment and see how it went. Now I know. On the other hand, how many days of the year do you have intensely problematic dramas? Most days dwell in the blase of life, so I thought I'd draw from that. Thanks again, John.

[blp]

You're right. There's a lot to be said for not marginalising the ordinary. I'm not arguing for sturm und drang, it's just what I said above - I can never quite believe it when it's ultra-wry and switched off a la Eggars and co. It seems less like an admission that not every day's dramatic and more like a pose, that, in itself, marginalises a lot of angst, as if it's saying, yeah, I know there's a lot of weird bad **** going down, but I wouldn't be so guache as to actually seem bothered about it. No, worse, the ordinary feels like a lie, not unlike the lie of advertising. Somewhere, there are people whose pleasant modern lives consist of no dramas, no moral quandaries and just the occasional, wistful, largely painless separation, interesting quirks, no engagement with politics. Maybe there are, though, maybe there are.

Whoo. Sorry to go off on one. Just working this out for myself.

As for leaving out your preface, I think not a problem. As I say, I liked it at the start and, in general, I'm much in favour of being launched into things without explanation.