Winter white

This morning I awoke rather ambitious and made a large apple pecan pancake in the iron skillet for Cindy and myself. Cindy liked it. Pretty good for someone without a recipe to go from and a lack of surety about the ingredients. It is somewhat amazing what you can put together when you have the time and the inclination.

The gamblers on the weather were all talking about snow today. When I woke up it just looked overcast. The temperature was not that cold and there wasn't a big hint of precipitation. But lo and behold, at around 11:00 this morning, I was in line at the Ingles' supermarket and looked out the big windows to see big, beautiful flakes of snow coming down. When I got into the parking lot, I could tell nothing was sticking. But it still looked pretty.

By the way, I thought it was kind of interesting to see what everyone was getting in preparation for the storm. There were a whole lot of white bread, pimento cheese and boxes of 'little debbie's' being purchased. I think I have discovered a pattern between cold weather and the present state of weight and physical health in the USA. There are a whole lot of unhealthy things being eaten in America when it gets cold.

Well, the afternoon has come and gone and the snow storm is drifting up the east coast of America. The temperature outside is just under freezing and I wonder what the people in Virginia and Maryland and New Jersey are eating in their homes tonight. Hopefully better than pimento cheese on white bread and 'little debbies.' I would like to envision the Marylanders eating clam chowder and crabcakes. The New Jerseyites eating pizza and drinking beer. Or maybe cannolis. "Leave the gun; get the cannolis."

Tonight everything is supposed to freeze again. Tomorrow may be more dangerous than it is right now. Black ice and cars going crazy on the highway. It might be better to just stay at home and go to church in the morning. If there is church in the morning.

Which all goes to lead me to say that it is very rare when we get a Winter storm which really lays us under. It has happened in the past, but it is very rare.

But right now there is a dusting of Winter white which is quite pretty on this January Saturday afternoon.

Thursday and Friday in January

Yesterday I attended a seminar on eminent domain at the Georgia State Bar Headquarters in Atlanta. The State Bar Headquarters is now in the old Federal Reserve Offices, next to the Atlanta Journal Constitution offices, and down from Phillips Arena and the old Omni building. I was a little bit out of field because I have only been involved in several eminent domain cases, and only from the standpoint of the condemnee. I seemed to be surrounded by people who worked almost exclusively in condemnations.

At around 10:00 we took a break and I called Cindy on my cellphone. She asked me if I was networking. I said I would as well as I could, but that I really didn't see anyone I knew. At lunch, the bar provided box lunches and I sat down to eat. The fellow next to me spoke to me and we started to converse. I ended up telling him how a part of my family got to North Augusta, South Carolina, and mentioned that we came from Halifax County, Virginia. He said he knew where that was, since he went to school in Rockbridge County. I asked him if he went to W&L, and he did. We immediately had connection.

I spent most of my off time talking to him, a lawyer from Augusta. He was about fourteen years older than me.

At the end of the seminar, I hopped in my car and began the drive south back to Griffin. I called Patti at the office and found out that my closing set for 7:00 had been taken away by the source because they got the package earlier and the borrower had wanted to close before 12:00. Fun, fun.

I went back home to Griffin, only to pull up behind our friend, Cissie, as she delivered chicken soup for Cindy. We sat down and talked. After Cissie left, Cindy told me she really wanted steak. So one more trip to the grocery and we were eating steak and fries and butter beans.

Today, I got into the office around 8:15. Patti pulled in around 10:00, but she was shivering and apparently running a fever. She was on her way to the doctor for diagnosis and treatment.

I am waiting for a funeral this afternoon. After that, I am supposed to have a witness only closing at 6:00. We shall see.

This weekend looks uneventful. Other than some possibility of snow tonight. I was supposed to have a poetry seminar this weekend, but apparently it has been canceled because of lack of participation. I was looking forward to that.

Well, snow tomorrow?

The colors of weather

There were moments when it was really cold yesterday and I had to go home and rescue my topcoat from the hall closet. Oddly, this was some sort of magic because as soon as I took hold of the coat and covered my shoulders with it, the cold resolved itself and it wasn't nearly as cold as it had been. This was true, even when the day was dying and I would assume that the temperature was dropping. It had more to do with the wind than actual temperature. Or, to say it correctly, the temperature was affected by the wind.

Today it is supposed to start raining sometime in the afternoon and continue through tomorrow. On the weather maps, the rains are like a huge actor standing in the darkness of the wings. Practicing his lines out of sight of the audience. If you look offstage, you can see him. Going over the lines, again and again.

I have seen it when the actor offstage has come to his part and then stopped, as if stagestruck. A couple of years ago, a snow storm blew through Tennessee and Mississippi and Alabama, then died as it crossed the border between Alabama and Georgia. Waiting expectantly, the front came and then nothing....

But the weather men are saying that it is inevitable. The maps show whiteness in most of the northern counties. Rain is projected for the rest of the state. Angry reds and yellows are flowing across the gulf coast, looking to rise up, latitudinally (You can use that. I don't think its a word. But it should be, if not.) and strike like a snake. Yahhh!

The weather maps show the possibility of snow as white. That makes sense. But the warning of impending snow is red. That makes no sense. If the snow is imminent, why is it red? No matter how real snow is, it is still white. The more real it becomes, it doesn't turn red. That is silly.

If there was a light white, you could use that for the possibility of snow, then use dark white for probable snow. But how are you going to create white which is light or dark. When it is white, it is white.

Even other types of frozen precipitation can appear white. Ice, sleet, hail.

Perhaps the possibility of snow should be light blue. That way if the H2O doesn't freeze, then it will be water (rain) anyway. Light blue is a good color for rain.

But not red and yellow.

Sunlight through the trees

I am not sure what was so lovely
About sitting in the backseat
Of my mother's station wagon,
Driving here to there
To buy a shirt and pants for school
Or replenish my mother's stock
Of toiletries and pantyhose.

I hated the way my mother drove:
Fast, slow, speed up, hit the brake,
Until the solid lunch she'd fed us
Became a churning boil
In my early-adolescent stomach.

But sometimes vision could break that spell
And arrest notice through the dappled sunlight,
Light and dark,
Playing with my eyesight
Through the trees above me
A child-like wonder, groaning,
Rising up from my chest
And I could swallow the Summer whole
Like a juicy Georgia peach,
The sweetness flowing from my lips
On my hands, down my arms
In a baptism of the season's calling.

December 12

I am older, naturally.
I will groan and grind my teeth
Most of the day and on into the night
And I will despair of the white hairs
I see in the mirror
Like frosting on my countenance
Now an every day occurrence
So that my days are gloomy reflections
And I don't see the use
Of any great struggle
Raging against the dying of some light
Which surely withered on a late Summer's day,
When one was younger.

But my birth day is different.
Everything is swinging youthfully
The birds of Winter are singing
Chirping at the feeder
Cheerfully, even in the cold
Of a December morning
When others might
Shiver at the dying of the day
Or mourn the end of another year.
But those who still love me
Have been kind to me
And magically stopped the coming of that Winter Solstice
For just one brief moment
And given me a personal joy
Which would be lost ordinarily
To the gloom of these fleeting days.

The December frost is cheerful,
Like buttercream
On a cake meant solely for me.

Are you experienced?

Let me start off by saying that I realize that Griffin retains some of its small town atmosphere even though we are rightfully a part of the great megalopolis of Atlanta and lose bits of our former identity every day. Some of the idiosyncracies of small town life remain. However, I was party today to one of these such moments, which I really want to illustrate, to see if I am just not the only one this happens to.

This afternoon I was driving back to my office after lunch. I had completed the journey all the way from my home to the intersection of South Sixth Street and Taylor Street (the main east/west thoroughfare in Griffin). I was stopped at the light at Taylor Street, watching the traffic go past, when it finally turned green for me. I began to proceed up Sixth Street toward the courthouse and Solomon Street.

As I proceeded at a leisurely clip up Sixth Street, I notice two women meandering on a diagonal across my path. Both were bundled in winter coats; both were looking up the street toward the traffic approaching from the opposite direction. Neither was looking in my direction.

There were several cars proceeding down Sixth Street toward me. These several cars were obviously the concern of these two women, since they were facing them. None of the cars was stopping or slowing in order to allow the women to cross the street in front of them. Neither did the women speed up or return to the safety of the sidewalk behind them in order to avoid the possibility of injury from an on-coming car. Neither was looking in my direction.

As I proceeded northward on Sixth Street, I had several options before me. One would have been to honk my horn and get the attention of the two ladies so that they might return to the sidewalk or proceed faster across the street. One would have been to speed up in order to make them aware of me by the sound of my revving engine. Another would have been to maintain the posted speed, or even speed up, and proceed down the thoroughfare, obstacles notwithstanding.

Instead, I slowed down to allow the two ladies time to cross my lane of traffic. I didn't speed up or hit my horn. I basically allowed these two women the ability to continue on their route unimpeded.

As I slowly moved down the street toward them, the ladies finally finished cutting across my lane of traffic, stopping in the middle of the street. At this point, I was able to pass them without risk of injury to either of them. I finally approached their proximate location, still slowly moving toward their position, when one of the women turned and gave me a glare as if to inform me that I was invading their personal space.

At this point I really wondered what sense of entitlement could cause someone to cross a city street, basically near the busiest spot in town, at a diagonal which would cause that person to take the longest geometric journey across the street, causing traffic in the area to slow down or speed up depending on the orientation of the drivers, then register an objection to any such driver evidencing some ownership of the right of way down that street.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that pedestrians do have some rights when crossing the streets. However, I really wondered how my efforts to act gentlemanly and hospitable in order to ignore the selfish efforts of these two ladies in taking up my lane of traffic for an inordinate amount of time, could be met with such disdain.

I realize that Griffin still bears some idiocyncrasies from its proximity in time to its more rural past and its nearness to its more rural neighbors. This rural lifestyle often causes scenes which one might not ordinarily find on the streets of a more cosmopolitan city, like Atlanta. I remember driving back to work after lunch one time to find myself behind a wrecker hauling the carcass of a Hereford cow which had been hit by a car. That was a lovely post-luncheon image. I also often see people stopped in the middle of busy Griffin thoroughfares to leisurely talk to people they know. I must admit that I quite often do that myself, as long as I am not causing an obstruction for other traffic.

No, it was not the fact that these two ladies were walking across traffic in a manner which would impede traffic, apparently anticipating that we members of the surrounding traffic would stop or slow to allow their journey. No, it was the attitude of entitlement which caught my eye and made me wish I had been less than hospitable in dealing with these two women crossing the street, in their own time, in their own manner, without apparent concern in which their manner of traverse might effect those of us, like me, who were operating vehicles of greater girth and weight than they.

Sometimes it doesn't pay to be a gentleman. Or rather, the effort to be a gentleman is not rewarded with its appropriate due. At least, in my opinion. My humble opinion.

In communicado

I am sitting here in my office, waiting for the world to arrive. Or at least a piece of it. I am trying to work on some items before the day begins in earnest. I would not want anyone to come to my office and see what it looks like. It is not to the point where I would want those ladies from BBC America to come and dig me out. I don't think you would find unfinished meals and dead vermin in my office. It is just not as straight as it needs to be.

I am going to stop here and try to work on some things before the rest of the day gets started. I need to look at some law books.

Horrors! Look up the law? Say it isn't so (To borrow from the Black Sox Scandal).

There is always something a little bit desperate in a lawyer of my years actually sitting down and trying to determine the lay of the law land. Most laymen would probably think that this is something which should be second nature to an experienced lawyer.

But I will tell you: just as you begin to grasp a handle on some part of the law, even that part which seldom changes, like real estate law, then you find yourself immersed in the interweavings of changing statutes, court opinions and whatnot.

And it is the whatnot which will really get you.