Cleveland is supposed to receive between 12 and 18 inches of snow in the next 24 hours. My next-door neighbor has invited me to hike through the blizzard to go to the wine bar in our neighborhood. Could be fun! Or very cold!
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
07 March 2008
SELF-PORTRAIT IN A SNOWSTORM
Cleveland is supposed to receive between 12 and 18 inches of snow in the next 24 hours. My next-door neighbor has invited me to hike through the blizzard to go to the wine bar in our neighborhood. Could be fun! Or very cold!
04 March 2008
ONE GOOD TURN
Today the temperature reached 60 and all the snow melted and the sun came out. I got spring fever, practically running to work in my bright red Prada shoes with no coat on. I was giddy.
After yet one more day of being not very good at my job, it got rainy and cold again, and I was stuck in my office with no coat and no hat and no umbrella.
Eventually I faced the truth that I had no choice but to walk home in the rain. It is, as I may have said before, a one-mile walk that should take me about twenty minutes. But not tonight. Halfway up the hill I saw a man stumbling in middle of the street. I thought he was just drunk, but as I got closer I saw that he was rather elderly, and as he stumbled over to the far side of the street, where there is no sidewalk, only a muddy embankment, he clutched his chest and looked like he was in a lot of pain. So I called out to him.
I was right the first time. He was just very, very drunk. He was perhaps in his 70s, although it's hard to tell. At first I thought his pinky finger on one hand had been amputated, but in I saw later that the finger was normal, just curved in at a strange, painful angle. He was wearing a ratty hooded jacket and big cheap glasses.
"I'm drunk," he said.
"I'm really fucked up," he said.
"Where we goin'?," he said.
"I don't even know where the fuck I am," he said.
"I'm followin' you," he said.
He said these things over and over again. He said them all in the same tone of voice -- not pitiful at all, and not angry either, but sort of like he was giving a command, regardless of whether he was actually telling me to do something, asking a question, or stating a fact. The only thing in a different voice was a little terrified-sounding "woah!" when I started to get too far ahead of him. He'd lean against the fence for a moment, then revert to his normal tone. "Don't let me fall, motherfucker."
He only fell once. One of the lenses of his cheap glasses popped out, and a wad of cash fell out of his pocket. I thought that perhaps I would ditch him in a bus shelter and run home. It would have been easy, since we stopped in the bus shelter across from my house. He would never have remembered me, or remembered my failure to help him. And the only help I was providing was leading to the liquor store and the pay phone, which in the big picture was hardly any help at all. He wanted me to take him to a restaurant or a motel. Neither were a possibility in Cleveland Heights at midnight on a Monday. The liquor store was the best I could do.
And I did it. I got him to the all-night liquor store, walking slowly in the rain as my bright red Prada shoes got more and more waterlogged and my toes got more and more numb. I held his hand now and then, briefly, but mostly walked five steps ahead. Mostly I just wanted to keep him from walking into the road and getting hit. As he finally walked in the door of the shop, I ran back towards my house that we had earlier passed. He never told me his name or expressed any gratitude whatsoever, except for a moment when I handed him the lens of his glasses.
There was a moment, in the middle of our journey, when we stopped in a bus shelter, when he said "Wait, wait. I want to talk to you." He started to say "I'm from..." and then a long pause "I need to go to..." and then another long pause. He never told me where he was from, or maybe he didn't know anymore. After the moment, we fell back into his mantra of "I'm drunk...where we goin'...I'm followin' you."
He would not have remembered my abandoning him. He will not remember my helping him.
After yet one more day of being not very good at my job, it got rainy and cold again, and I was stuck in my office with no coat and no hat and no umbrella.
Eventually I faced the truth that I had no choice but to walk home in the rain. It is, as I may have said before, a one-mile walk that should take me about twenty minutes. But not tonight. Halfway up the hill I saw a man stumbling in middle of the street. I thought he was just drunk, but as I got closer I saw that he was rather elderly, and as he stumbled over to the far side of the street, where there is no sidewalk, only a muddy embankment, he clutched his chest and looked like he was in a lot of pain. So I called out to him.
I was right the first time. He was just very, very drunk. He was perhaps in his 70s, although it's hard to tell. At first I thought his pinky finger on one hand had been amputated, but in I saw later that the finger was normal, just curved in at a strange, painful angle. He was wearing a ratty hooded jacket and big cheap glasses.
"I'm drunk," he said.
"I'm really fucked up," he said.
"Where we goin'?," he said.
"I don't even know where the fuck I am," he said.
"I'm followin' you," he said.
He said these things over and over again. He said them all in the same tone of voice -- not pitiful at all, and not angry either, but sort of like he was giving a command, regardless of whether he was actually telling me to do something, asking a question, or stating a fact. The only thing in a different voice was a little terrified-sounding "woah!" when I started to get too far ahead of him. He'd lean against the fence for a moment, then revert to his normal tone. "Don't let me fall, motherfucker."
He only fell once. One of the lenses of his cheap glasses popped out, and a wad of cash fell out of his pocket. I thought that perhaps I would ditch him in a bus shelter and run home. It would have been easy, since we stopped in the bus shelter across from my house. He would never have remembered me, or remembered my failure to help him. And the only help I was providing was leading to the liquor store and the pay phone, which in the big picture was hardly any help at all. He wanted me to take him to a restaurant or a motel. Neither were a possibility in Cleveland Heights at midnight on a Monday. The liquor store was the best I could do.
And I did it. I got him to the all-night liquor store, walking slowly in the rain as my bright red Prada shoes got more and more waterlogged and my toes got more and more numb. I held his hand now and then, briefly, but mostly walked five steps ahead. Mostly I just wanted to keep him from walking into the road and getting hit. As he finally walked in the door of the shop, I ran back towards my house that we had earlier passed. He never told me his name or expressed any gratitude whatsoever, except for a moment when I handed him the lens of his glasses.
There was a moment, in the middle of our journey, when we stopped in a bus shelter, when he said "Wait, wait. I want to talk to you." He started to say "I'm from..." and then a long pause "I need to go to..." and then another long pause. He never told me where he was from, or maybe he didn't know anymore. After the moment, we fell back into his mantra of "I'm drunk...where we goin'...I'm followin' you."
He would not have remembered my abandoning him. He will not remember my helping him.
01 December 2007
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!"
10 November 2007
GREG'S SENSE OF SNOW
I have a strong memory of the first snowfall after I moved to Massachusetts to go to college. I was coming from California, and had convinced myself (or been convinced) that I would hate the cold weather. I made jokes about it, but I was genuinely afraid that I would spend months being unhappy. And then fall arrived, and it got chilly, but fall in north-western Massachusetts is so famously beautiful that the weather really couldn't get me down. But still I thought—when the snow arrives, I will be miserable.
And then the first snowfall happened, and it was sublime. It was like a cloud of soft white feathers. It seemed to be happening in slow motion. I was transfixed, like that dumb scene American Beauty where the kid films the plastic bag blowing in the wind, except instead of one anthropomorphized object, there was a swarm little dancers joyfully spinning all around me. I told myself to remember the experience.
This week, Cleveland had its first snowfall of the season. And it was like a thousand tiny little daggers stabbing my face again and again.
Coming soon on Letters from Cleveland: Greg reports on the special hell that is the "Wintry Mix." They have invented a whole new form of weather here, that I had never heard of! It's going to be a long winter.
And then the first snowfall happened, and it was sublime. It was like a cloud of soft white feathers. It seemed to be happening in slow motion. I was transfixed, like that dumb scene American Beauty where the kid films the plastic bag blowing in the wind, except instead of one anthropomorphized object, there was a swarm little dancers joyfully spinning all around me. I told myself to remember the experience.
This week, Cleveland had its first snowfall of the season. And it was like a thousand tiny little daggers stabbing my face again and again.
Coming soon on Letters from Cleveland: Greg reports on the special hell that is the "Wintry Mix." They have invented a whole new form of weather here, that I had never heard of! It's going to be a long winter.
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