06 June 2008

The Weathermakers

For the second day in a row I awoke to a deluge from the heavens. While it did gradually clear up over the course of a morning, it still brings to light once again the fact that whenever Zeeba and I get together, the heavens open up - which I suppose could be considered romantic, except that when they open up, they generally tend to dump on us.

Granted, it's not dumping in the same sense as practiced by Gary and Lisa in Team America: World Police, or by Adolf Hitler - a notorious coprophile whom a secret OSS report said, "...practiced an outre sexual perversion so repellent it drove women to suicide." These are distinctly unromantic dumpings (as evidenced by the multiple suicide attempts. And the flies.)

No, in fact, if you were to take a snapshot of any of these climatic events - soft snowflakes fluttering around rosy faces framed in hats and mufflers, puffs of warm breath materializing like fog in the air, and Eskimo kisses keeping noses warm; or a light drizzle of fresh Spring rain misting impassioned lovers as they walk hand in hand in a burgeoning garden with bright, fragrant blossoms kissing the air with their sweet perfume - it's hella romantic!

The reality can be somewhat different. Fortunately, love works on a microcellular level, rewiring the brain's thought processes so that only the good bits are remembered, and the messy bits - like having to step over a curb that is a foot deep with muddy brown, icy slush and missing, stepping right into the puddle's epicenter and having to walk around the rest of the night with a distinct slosh - slosh - slosh and frostbite in your toes - are relegated to the broom closet of your mind, only to be released when you decide to sweep out the cobwebs. And as long as you're still in love - and don't write a blog - those memories can remain hidden away forever.

For us, of course, there is a greater toll paid for inclement weather, and that is the fact that we live 656 miles apart. In the best weather, the airlines fail to run on time, cancel flights, and run through their plethora of excuses about why they cannot do the job you've paid them handsomely to do. When the weather even spits a little, airports shut down, flights are pushed back by hours, and the price we pay is watching the few precious moments we have together bleeding away. It's like a gunshot wound to the abdomen that misses the vital organs: not necessarily fatal, but it hurts like hell.

So, yes, it seems odd to me that almost every time we get together, the weather rears up against us. I suspect there is some bad magic involved, what with her being a magic pirate and me being a straight-up ninja. Natural enemies turned star-crossed lovers. It upsets the gentle balance of nature.

Here is a sample weather report:

The long, cool Autumn in 2007 came to an abrupt end with the first big snow of the season (with many more to follow) on December 1st. It was the date of our annual Holiday Party, and the blustery snowstorm that came out of nowhere racked up the guest list and smacked it like a great white cue ball, pocketing most of the potential partygoers in their homes and scattering some of the more adventuresome members of the group in ditches along the highway. The result was still a fantastic party, only with a much declined enrollment. This, of course, was the day Zeeba and I finally got together.

Later in December, Zeeba came up to Chicago during an impromptu reunion of my old pals from Dallas. The Wizards of Weather had peered into their crystal balls and proclaimed a weekend of intense but arid cold... and yet, as we stepped out of the hotel and walked along Michigan Avenue to the restaurant for dinner, we were assaulted from above by a few large flakes of snow. We were so rock star that night that the snowflakes thought it was a rave and invited their friends to the mosh pit of our life, and all told, about two feet of snow fell that night.

Snow in Chicago, getting its freak on.

In January, we went to the south of France for my birthday, and the week before we arrived torrential downpours caused landslides in the area that closed roads, snarling traffic in the serpentine causeways the whole week we were there.

In February, having decided that air travel was too precarious (and expensive), we took matters into our own hands and did our own little remake of Meet Me in St. Louis - she driving 5 hours northeast and me driving 5 hours southwest. It was a beautiful weekend, sunny and not too cold, and we had a great time, making the most of our time together until the inevitable parting on Sunday afternoon. As I made my way back toward Wisconsin, I was met by a slight drizzle that slowly built up in intensity to a mixed downpour of freezing rain and snow, and then morphed into an outright blizzard. I slowly and cautiously made my way along the highway, white knuckles clutching the steering wheel of my rear-wheel drive Crown Vic as I counted the cars that had propelled off the snow-covered sheet of ice that was the highway and listened to the reports of highway deaths on the radio.

I was getting nowhere fast, making the 300+ mile drive at 35 mph, when suddenly my car hit a patch of ice and spun to the left. I watched the road spin away from me until I was face-to-face with the traffic coming up from behind me. Fortunately, they were a good distance behind me, or it would not have ended well. As the car spun just a bit past 180 degrees, I somehow managed to spin it back around in the other direction and, facing forward again, I began to slide sideways off to the right embankment. By some miracle - and it could have been God, I reckon, but if so it means He answers prayers that go something like, "Fuck. Shit. Fuck." - I brought the car to a stop on the shoulder of the road, without rolling down the embankment. I waited for the cars behind me to pass, slid back into the right lane, and continued toward home... which that night, anyway, was a filthy little motel about 50 miles away.

And Zeeba, although she made it home without incident from the weather, spent the next week miserable with the flu.

Some day, we will harness our powers for good. Until then, bring an umbrella with you when we come to your town.

The Last Five:
I heard it on the radio - 27 July 2008
Happiness is... - 26 July 2008
Do bears shit in the woods? - 21 July 2008
Politics schmoliticks - 14 July 2008
words and pictures - 14 July 2008

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