Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Throughout the U.S., even in Texas, the weather is bitter cold.  I am holed up in my apartment, unable to install an new ink cartridge in the printer David bought for me at Thanksgiving. Frustrating.

I want to write letters to various organizations to tell them to quit filling  my recycling bin with their pitiful pleas for money.  I am careful about how I spend my limited funds.  Mine go to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the Texas Food Bank. I also want to write to the Texas Democratic Party to tell them they will not get any money from me as they are totally incompetent.  But without a printer, I can not send out any letters.  Maybe no one will read them anyway.

So I will write a blog.  I can post it without using the printer.  As I begin this new series of blogs I will continue to comment on current events, relating what is happening today to my memories and experiences.  Also, my son David also wants me to write family history to tell him what happened before he was born.

First, I will begin with what television news showed about the big storm up North.  I lived in Michigan and Illinois.  I remember many dreadful winters. 

The television showed pictures of trucks and cars wrecked in a huge pileup during a snow storm in Michigan.  When we lived in the Detroit suburbs, Wally used to travel that highway on business trips to Grand Rapids.  He was there when the state was buried in a sudden 12-inch blizzard.  Believing he could not get home that night, I gave the kids hot dogs for supper and settled down for a quiet evening.  At 7:00 p.m. Wally walked in the front door. 

He said, “I followed the snow plow all the way from Grand Rapids.  No problems until I got home.  The snow plot has tossed up a mountain of snow at the end of our driveway.  I just came in to get the shovel, so I can clear the drive and get the car off the street in front of our house.”   

My daughter and her family still live in the Chicago suburbs.  For work she rides the train into the Chicago Loop, then walks a quarter of mile to her office. 

“Why don’t you take a taxi?” I asked her. 
“Mom!” she said, “There is a long line waiting in the cold for a taxi.  I can walk across the Loop quicker than I could get a taxi.”

The high today in Chicago is 18 degrees.  Makes 35 degrees in Dallas seem balmy.  But don’t tell Texans it isn’t cold here.  Like many things in life, how we feel and react to things depends on our personal experiences.  If a person has never gone through a Northern winter, then 35 degrees feels bitter cold.

P.S.  Even though I know 35 degrees is not really cold, I am not going out today.  Why should I?  All I need is right here in the elegant retirement home where I live.