Earlier I was sittin' here typing away about being snowed in AND plowed in & what I was maybe gonna do about that, and when. I got to digressing, as I will, while out the window there was my neighbor B across the way, takin' care of business with his shovel.
I may have never had a friend who takes more pleasure in taking care of business than B does. He was out there doing his usual bang-up job, and I was back-and-forth with O about my strategy for the other (not-my-friend) neighbor's snowplow guy's wall of packed snow standing between the Subaru and Sweet Freedom, and whether a pick-axe might come in handy, if anyone had one, and we also talked some job talk talk, and then I was typing some more. Then suddenly I saw B and his ergonomically advanced implement making their way into the foot of the drive, and then proceeding to attack the very wall I'd been contemplating.
I went to the door, blessed his heart, and shouted to him not to finish before I got some more clothes on to join him.
There was so little left to do by the time I was chipping in ---on my own snow--- that I cleaned off the car & swept the stoop & even did the steps & walk on the other side, all the way to the bird feeder, which is now refilled.
Even the little birdies benefit from his kindness.
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Though the lead-in to it is now lost to history, I'll leave you the piddly story of olde I was typing, from a time long ago, when my first gf and I were living together, and we ordered a pizza. Something had been going on that day that had had us on edge. We were emotionally spent, or somehow compromised like that. I imagine we'd both been crying, though that might not be true. Fighting, surely. Both wholly worn out, but nothing resolved. Anyway, we decided to order a pizza. So we called the place on the corner where we usually got subs---Never On Sunday. In addition to a jukebox that offered the 45 of "Never On Sunday" (from the movie by the same name) (what you didn't do on Sunday in the film wasn't sell gyros), they had a small game room. I ate many a sub because I wanted to spend a little time with the likes of Pinbot pinball, while onions fried.
So that day, maybe thinking food would help, we got it together to descend to the street & go down to the corner & pick up the pizza & bring it back & carry it up to our little dramaland. And then we opened the box & saw [ominous sound effect here]: it had pepperoni on it. It was supposed to be vegetarian. Onions & peppers, maybe. Anyway, it wasn't supposed to have pepperoni. She was vegetarian, and I don't like pepperoni on pizza. And the pepperoni was all greasy, and pools of its grease were all over.
We were both so spiritually exhausted---it probably went without saying that there was no way we were going to go get a new pizza. And no way we were going to eat it as it was, even plucking off the offending discs. So there it sat, and we cried. After a while, we called my mother.
I could tell she didn't understand why it was such a tragedy for us. But she understood that it was. And I halfway knew even then that part of what we wanted from her, and wanted from each other, was a little shared recognition that everything sucked, and that there was so much to be sad about, and that we were.
And I also kinda knew, even then, that it was our choice, to take the lousy pizza as part of the vast inevitable crappiness of things, rather than to take the pizza & march it back for a replacement. At the time I thought it was mostly about neither of us being willing to confront the pizza people.
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In the Small Things That Aren't Small Things Department, I was out drinking last night. Maybe it wasn't "just the ticket," but it was definitely a ticket. I remember my companion saying something like "Some nights need to be gobbled up."
And so it was.
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Now I'll be getting back to my snow-day "L Word" marathon. Thanks,
kohkae! Much appreciated. 