WINTER SOLSTICE

Today is Sunday, the twenty-first day of December. Outside the world is God's icebox, all snow and ice and hi-zowling winds, and inside I am--obviously--at the bench o' computation, and Meegie is cocooned in bed, slabberdashed betwixt Louie and Oliver. From the bedroom I hear a dog sneeze, closely followed by a female voice saying, "Ohhh, Gawd, Oliver." There is not a whole hell of a lot on tap today; basically, it'll be a lazy snowy December Sunday morning. The Lions will not be televised. They didn't sell out the stadium. I'll putter around here and eat lunch when the urge strikes me and get to a 1:00 meeting down the road. (I'd intended to go to the 10:00 meeting in Berkley--my ostensible Home Group--but, hell, I looked outside and heard the wind and just decided, "Fuggit. I'll go later.")

God bless winter. God bless the refreshing, invigorating, sub-freezing winds which render a nose a radish in under four minutes. God bless the doggies cavorting in the backyard, spinning white dervishes of snow from under their playful paws. God bless the sugar coatings on the trees and the crystalline icicles that hang from the gutters. God bless the sense of unity that many Michiganders display after a particularly heavy snowfall--snowblowing neighbor's driveways, giving The Stuck a push--but God damn the havoc the unplowed streets wreak on the undercarriage of my Ford Focus. It's too low to the ground, and a mere five inches'll fucking get it stuck. I was pretty damned frustrated yesterday, what with the neighborhood plows nowhere in sight and my car repeatedly getting stuck...in the apron of my driveway, a couple of houses down, at the end of the street. When a street isn't plowed, stop signs tend to lose their relevance, to me. As long as there isn't any other car or pedestrian in the Ground Zero vincinity, I'm-a gonna keep motoring right along. And if a car does have the audacity to be in my drive-zone at that highly-crucial point in time, I'll stop and grumble curses at the blithely unaware motorist. And then I'll get out of my car, shovel in hand, and get to work. For all you warm-weather climes, you gotta come to Michigan or somewhere in the northern snowbelt and try your hand at winter driving! It's fun! >=o) (<---See?! I'm smiling!)

Anyway.

Today is the winter solstice. Assuming that my meterological knowledge is beyond the neotonical stages, it's the shortest day of the year. I wonder if, back in the day, the animal skin-clad hunters and gatherers had special ceremonies in which they begged the dieties to "bring back the Sun, damn it"? Maybe they had sacrifices. Nowadays, we have psychological conditions like S.A.D. and depression and our sacrifices are our brain chemicals as we pop pills to "bring back the Sun." Ah, progress. :-O

Let's all band together and perform some Pagan rituals--like Speedo snow angels or the like--to expediate the winter process. Whaddya say?

(By the way: four more days until Christmas. If you're one who celebrates the birth of Baby Jesus, it's time to get shopping. Ironic, isn't it?)