She whom I call Maria Adeniké (a-de-NEE-kay) came into the snows of winter at 8:53 on February 15, 2016. She will soon experience the openings of spring, the warmth of summer, and the farewells of autumn, but right now we are aglow in a land of faërie and timeless seasons.
The name is only temporary. The parents have not decided on a lasting name. And I have no permission to release photos, so that will await some future time.
I had all my weather prognostications ready for February 13 through the 15th, ready for the drive to the hospital.
Plenty of research, charts, reports, data...
Every time a TV weather report came on, I would either smile in accord or shake my sage head disapprovingly, and then go on to point out where the sad, slightly inane Weather Bimbo or Weather Gigolo had made their errors.
Later I discovered that I was multiplying the indicated amounts of precipitation by 100 instead of 10 to convert rainfall into snowfall, and was saying that we would slip into the hospital by the slimmest of margins before the coming Mini-Snowmageddon. (Whatever that means! I mean, may one have a Mini-Armageddon? Or a Mini-Apocalypse?)
So now there were only 1 or 2 inches in the early morning hours...
Or were there?
Upon going over the data in my dreams, Firefly (Firefly is my dream editor of weather data... my dream life is a lot like A Midsummer's Nights' Dream.) questioned whether I had translated Zulu Time (or, Greenwich Mean Time) into EST correctly!
And it turns out I had not; I had added 4 hours instead of subtracting four hours.
So relying upon forecasts for 300 Zulu, I had read 3+4 = 7:00 AM EST February 15 for the earliest possible snow, and the correct time was 300 Zulu minus 4 hours, or 11:00 PM February 14!
A mere flip of 8 hours of winter's best!
So when I looked out at 2:35 AM, it was snowing quite nicely.
And the forecasts of the Weather Bimbos and Gigolos were spot on, and there would 1 to 3 inches of the jolly white powder, followed by freezing rain in the evening, followed by rain on top of the frozen ground, followed by a warmer Tuesday.
I started shoveling early. I worked with my son-in-law. I would have started earlier, but he has various electronic locking gizmos on the doors, and I was afraid if I opened the front door an alarm that wailed like one of those trump-of-doom sirens on an ancient CONELRAD TV informational cartoon designed to scare the bejabbers out of anyone younger than 50 would go off and my status, which had already plummeted to new lows based upon my Weather-Gate scandal, would suffer even more, and I would sort of become a Jake-Spoon-like outcast for my old comrades of Lonesome Dove, and there might be a necktie party of hempen rope!
I used a broom to clear the snow from the from steps. The snow was powdery, and a good broom not only clears snow, but will dig up snow that has been compressed by walking over it.
There are a lot of brick steps. There are more when you are carrying groceries, but there are fewer when you feel in fine fettle; mostly the steps run at an average number.
However, when you do come back from the grocery store, they do rather resemble those interminable Georgetown steps in the movie The Exorcist. I swear that I looked down them Sunday afternoon as I juggled milk and orange juice and front door, and I could hear a raspy voice croak,. "Could ya help an old newsboy, Father?!"
I wonder what makes us forget these miracles.
A cry that should be joyful is so often twisted into a Kurtz-like incantation as we lend our indifference to the thousands of child martyrs of our age, swimming in the Mediterranean Heart of Darkness of our age.
--
The name is only temporary. The parents have not decided on a lasting name. And I have no permission to release photos, so that will await some future time.
I had all my weather prognostications ready for February 13 through the 15th, ready for the drive to the hospital.
Plenty of research, charts, reports, data...
Every time a TV weather report came on, I would either smile in accord or shake my sage head disapprovingly, and then go on to point out where the sad, slightly inane Weather Bimbo or Weather Gigolo had made their errors.
Later I discovered that I was multiplying the indicated amounts of precipitation by 100 instead of 10 to convert rainfall into snowfall, and was saying that we would slip into the hospital by the slimmest of margins before the coming Mini-Snowmageddon. (Whatever that means! I mean, may one have a Mini-Armageddon? Or a Mini-Apocalypse?)
So now there were only 1 or 2 inches in the early morning hours...
Or were there?
Upon going over the data in my dreams, Firefly (Firefly is my dream editor of weather data... my dream life is a lot like A Midsummer's Nights' Dream.) questioned whether I had translated Zulu Time (or, Greenwich Mean Time) into EST correctly!
And it turns out I had not; I had added 4 hours instead of subtracting four hours.
So relying upon forecasts for 300 Zulu, I had read 3+4 = 7:00 AM EST February 15 for the earliest possible snow, and the correct time was 300 Zulu minus 4 hours, or 11:00 PM February 14!
A mere flip of 8 hours of winter's best!
So when I looked out at 2:35 AM, it was snowing quite nicely.
And the forecasts of the Weather Bimbos and Gigolos were spot on, and there would 1 to 3 inches of the jolly white powder, followed by freezing rain in the evening, followed by rain on top of the frozen ground, followed by a warmer Tuesday.
I started shoveling early. I worked with my son-in-law. I would have started earlier, but he has various electronic locking gizmos on the doors, and I was afraid if I opened the front door an alarm that wailed like one of those trump-of-doom sirens on an ancient CONELRAD TV informational cartoon designed to scare the bejabbers out of anyone younger than 50 would go off and my status, which had already plummeted to new lows based upon my Weather-Gate scandal, would suffer even more, and I would sort of become a Jake-Spoon-like outcast for my old comrades of Lonesome Dove, and there might be a necktie party of hempen rope!
I used a broom to clear the snow from the from steps. The snow was powdery, and a good broom not only clears snow, but will dig up snow that has been compressed by walking over it.
There are a lot of brick steps. There are more when you are carrying groceries, but there are fewer when you feel in fine fettle; mostly the steps run at an average number.
However, when you do come back from the grocery store, they do rather resemble those interminable Georgetown steps in the movie The Exorcist. I swear that I looked down them Sunday afternoon as I juggled milk and orange juice and front door, and I could hear a raspy voice croak,. "Could ya help an old newsboy, Father?!"
I wonder what makes us forget these miracles.
The children! The children!
A cry that should be joyful is so often twisted into a Kurtz-like incantation as we lend our indifference to the thousands of child martyrs of our age, swimming in the Mediterranean Heart of Darkness of our age.
--
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2 comments:
Mazel tov, mazel tov, dear Montag!
And yes, when a child is born, all the world's children (it seems) are our children.
Thanks for the mazel tov!
You gave me two or three; how happy can we be!
luckily her father's hair, her mother's eyes, and not at all like me!
How lovely she is!
Sung to the tune of Bob Hope's theme, Thanks For The Memories.
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