FIRST STORM OF WINTER

Tonight, while I was in the movie theater watching I'm Not There (sublime!) the first storm of the winter arrived.

Did you know? When you drive in snow and sleet and freezing rain, it freezes to your windshield until you can't see very well. So you turn on your windshield wipers, which spreads everything around, so you see even less well. So then you spray your wiper fluid, which adds even more to spread around and freeze, so you can't see at all.

I would suggest that you go through these steps before you are driving on an unplowed road, where even if your windshield were clear, you couldn't see the lines that indicate where you are supposed to drive.

It is an adventure! (Eventually your wiper fluid and warm-air defrost inside will make it so that there is no longer ice blocking your view, and the fun ends.)

I stopped for gas, and on the other side of the pump there was a man filling up a pickup with a snow plow on the front.

"I hate this weather!" he yelled to me.

"But if it didn't snow, you'd, you'd be out of a job," I pointed out

"This time next year, I'm selling this damn truck and moving to Florida. I mean it; I'll do it. I tell you what!"

GARY

So, I'm walking through Little Italy on Labor Day, on my way to the office. The street is fairly deserted—one of of the few people I could see outside were a couple old men sitting outside the brightly-lit dive bar in the middle of the block. The bar is pictured above. At most hours of the day, that bench and the white plastic chairs are filled with large old men smoking cigars, and occasionally little old ladies smoking Virginia slims.

As I walked by, a large old man seated on the bench asked me if I had a light. I did. He then asked if I would join him in a smoke. I did. (Two smoking posts in a row! I'm still not a smoker, really! In fact, you can see in this story and the previous that the best thing about smoking is, in fact, the social space that it opens up, almost inaccessible through other means.) He said he liked my red striped socks, and then quickly qualified the compliment, "I mean they're not something I would wear..."

There was a Labor Day airshow going on, and the USAF Thunderbirds (or whatever) passing overhead prompted him to tell me about his childhood friend who is now an independent contractor in Afghanistan. This, in turn, led to his telling me his plan for Iraq, which was, in essence, a version of the fire-bombing of Dresden. Not a simplistic "Nuke 'em all," mind you, but rather an elaborately worked-out method for evaluating residential districts and leveling them one-by-one. I listened with the noncommittal smile-and-nod face that I have previously practiced during discussions with my racist uncle.

But this old man with dirty fingernails, whose name is Gary, was completely pleasant. Midwest-nice, in fact! As horrifying as his opinions were, I left the interaction smiling. He actually wanted me to have another cigarette, which I declined.

He also wanted me to come into the bar, where there was a Labor Day buffet set out. "Real good food," he explained, "not like the food you eat." I have no idea what he thinks I eat, but he said this simply as a statement of fact, as if it were self-evident, without a hint of insinuation or judgment.

In Cleveland, even the dirty old drunks are nice.

Note [23 Sept]: I actually wrote almost all of this this a week ago, but left it saved as a draft all this time.

I AM NOT, IN FACT, SKINNY

So, if you have not already clicked the little YouTube clip in the upper right-hand corner if this page, you should. It is funny. At one point, a stranger stops Tina Fey on the street and says "Are you a model? You're so skinny! You should eat something!"

THIS TOTALLY HAPPENED TO ME. For the record, the exact phrase was "Mary Kate Olsen thinks you need to eat a cheeseburger." And it was a co-worker, not stranger. And in his defence, I was wearing my grey flannel suit, which is rather flattering on me, if I do say so myself.

But still. Midwesterners: they are a large people.

MIDWESTERNERS ARE NICE

The stereotype of the "nice" Midwesterner has proven to be true. I have been simply overwhelmed by the offers of assistance, advice, and flat-out charity that I have received, not only from co-workers and colleagues, but from absolute strangers.

The most extreme instance occurred after I'd driven thirty minutes to go to Trader Joe's. (This, incidentally, remains the further I've ventured from my house since arriving.) When I arrived, I discovered a TJ's "Customer Appreciation Day" just getting underway. This involved a free barbecue—not free samples mind you, but full-on heaping plates of food for free. And sno-cones.

So I was already in a good mood before I had even done any shopping. When I was ready to check out, I chose a register at random, and ended up being rung up by a middle-aged woman with loose gray earth-mother hair. Somehow she guessed I was new in town (was it the Marimekko shirt?), and the next thing I knew she was explaining the geography of the area to me, recommending auto mechanics, telling me a more efficient route home, and explaining where the speed traps are on that route. We discovered that I was exactly between the ages of her two children, so she wanted to know about my career prospects, my life history, my family...

It all culminated in her giving me her home phone number, with the understanding that I was to call her whenever I needed help or advice. "Everybody needs a Jewish mother close by," she explained. Perhaps this all sounds rather creepy in the retelling. It seemed utterly sincere at the time. I mean, I'm not actually going to call or anything, but it absolutely made my day at the time. And I'll probably see her again—she works a lot of shifts at TJs ("Always at register #1!"), and I certainly can't get by without my "Greens With Envy" and Portuguese sardines.

When I was ready to leave, she left her register and grabbed a potted plant, a Gerber daisy, and gave it to me. (Some readers may know that I can't keep a plant alive to save my life. It died after about a week.)