Grateful to be cooped up indoors (for a change) on this messiest of New Year’s

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

But the fire is so delightful

And since we’ve got no place to go

Let it snow? Let it snow! Let it snow!                                    

  -0-

Whodathunk the New Year holiday season would have its own song. Even if it’s technically an appropriation of a Christmas holiday song.

My guide for coping with winter storm Hercules

For that first line from “Let it snow” was what came to my mind when I looked out the window to see the snowfall that has been falling off-and-on since Tuesday night.

AND I AM fortunate to be in a part of the Chicago metropolitan area that didn’t get hit with nearly a foot of snow. It has been just a couple of inches for me.

Reading and seeing the news reports of nearly a foot of snow in some parts of metro Chicago (which technically is a part of the “winter storm Hercules” that is sweeping itself this week across the northern part of the nation) made me feel grateful.

As was the fact that I am reduced these days to sporadic employment – often done from home.

I didn’t have to endure the commute to work that likely would have made me ridiculously late, and would have caused me to have to endure a rant from some boss who would want to blame everybody around him for inclement weather.

FOR THOSE OF you who had to put up with someone so nonsensical, I feel for you.

I wish I could say I spent the day watching this...

Although to be technical, I didn’t spend my Thursday cuddled up in front of a fire. Part of the day I spent in front of a laptop computer grinding out copy – including this very commentary you’re reading now.

I did have a television going for part of the day, tuned part of the day to The Weather Channel – where Stephanie Abrams, among others, convinced me that I was not alone in coping with heavy snowfall that will turn by week’s end to sub-zero-degree temperatures.

... instead of this

I also must confess to watching portions of a pair of cheesy films – “Peggy Sue Got Married” and “Detroit Rock City,” which not only make me wish it were possible to buy back that portion of time in my life so I could use it more wisely but also makes me wonder if actors Kathleen Turner and Edward Furlong wish they could somehow erase those films from being a drag on their careers.

ALTHOUGH IF IT turns out that watching a part of two bad films was the low part of my Thursday, then I shouldn’t complain. It wasn’t any worse than the guy who was doing an awful “Harry Caray” impersonation on MLB-TV.

Besides, I’m sure there are people out there who had miserable days; problems aggravated all the more by the inclement weather.

I was fortunate enough to be able to use a miserable day to add to a general tone of relaxation in the final days before we all have to get back to work following New Year’s Day. And the leftover ham and potato salad was actually an enjoyable weather shut-in meal.

Which because the holiday came near the beginning of a week allows the most unadventurous of us to turn Christmas and New Year’s into a nearly two-week-long period of slothness.

Leftover ham and potato salad; the shut-in meal!

I ONLY HOPE they were relaxed enough that they were able to pull out the shovel on Thursday and clear their own sidewalks and other areas around their house – without thinking that such actions entitle them to a parking space in front of their house, even though the streets are public property!

Because aside from the nonsense concept of “dibs,” the last thing we need is more people who think they don’t have to do anything because Mother Nature and the Sun will eventually make the slop of snowfall melt away.

  -30-