Each year, as the
direct result of a massive communist plot, winter returns to northeastern Ohio.
The best I can figure things out, Ohio
tends to vote conservatively and the commies don’t like that, so they send us
their winter weather.
Regardless of the letters I write to
the state and local governments, the cold temperatures, the snow and the ice
all hang around for months. The same
gentle breezes we have in the summer months feel like sharpened knives of ice
this time of year and there isn’t a thing to do about it.
“Hey, that’s your fault,” my
soon-to-be-ex friends say. “You’re the guy that decided to move there. Buy a
coat and live with it.”
That, of course, is the rub. The whole
living with it thing.
Oh, your loyal blogger was confident
before moving here from Southern California. Very dismissing of even a hint
from someone that one change in life can bring on lots of changes.
“If it turns cold outside, we’ll just
go inside,” I scoffed at the negative know-nothings who predicted an unhappy
result due to moving to northeastern Ohio. “If we have to drive somewhere, so
what? Both cars have heaters. Modern life has surpassed the point where you
have to wear scarves and gloves just to go outside. I mean, come on. Coats have
pockets, right?”
Okay, score one for the entire rest of
the world. You all might have been correct about the scarves and gloves. Maybe.
But, you know, you all might have been
wrong after all if it wasn’t for one issue that was not added into the
equation. The single, solitary X factor that was never dialed in. The
unforeseen circumstance. The problem.
We don’t
have a backyard. We do have a dog.
Dogs must be walked if you have no backyard to let them loose into.
The winter weather screwdriver keeps
turning things tighter as winter grows deeper and all those dumb metaphors.
Mother Nature, who might be related somehow to Mother Russia, just keeps piling
it on in order to prove her point: You need gloves and scarves.
Last year, as the winter noose grew
tighter, your loyal blogger began changing his dog walking wardrobe. First came
a seriously warm coat to supplant the light windbreaker I brought with me from
California. The wind breaker works in the spring and early fall, but not in
winter.
Then came gloves and a knit watch cap.
The watch cap goes under the hood of the warm coat. You can guess where the
gloves go, right? Walking the dog does not allow for keeping both hands in warm
coat pockets at the same time.
Last year, your loyal blogger learned
to take advantage of the glorious Metro Park located across the street from us.
The tree-studded walking paths, with their delightful changes in elevation and
abundant wildlife, offer terrific exercise. When the weather turned cold, a
head sock was purchased to protect the entire face from the nasty cold air.
A problem arose when the exhaled
breath from your loyal blogger’s lungs was directed up by the head sock instead
of out and thus fogged the eye glasses. It turns out you can’t see through
steamed spectacles. Who knew?
Those commies are really thorough.
For a year, this problem manifested
itself dozens of times: Walking the dog, walking the trails, walking to the
grocery, even walking from the parking lot to the shopping center.
It’s about 20 degrees outside, you’re
wearing five or 10 layers of clothing, plus winter boots, and you have to
trudge uphill to wherever you have to go. You start breathing a little harder,
the steam leaks out of the head sock, the specs fog up and, boom, you become a
human battering ram. A walking bumper car.
Things finally came to a head last
week while walking with Mrs. Leeway to the soft serve ice cream shop down the
street. There was ice on the sidewalk and, steamed up around the eyes,
you-know-who could not see the latest commie hazard and thus slipped on the
ice. Disaster was averted when, using dazzling dexterity, yours truly planted
the non-slipping foot on dry concrete and righted the ship.
Heroically, your loyal blogger was
determined to find a solution to this cold weather catastrophe. Finally it
happened.
Skiers have to breathe, right? And
they have to exhale because that’s part of the breathing process. So now, ski
goggles have been added to the walking wardrobe. The kind of goggles that fit
over eye glasses.
Our neighbors are convinced they have
a Martian living amongst them. Who else would wear a head sock and ski goggles
under a hood just to walk the dog? Then again, it must have been a little
confusing to see someone walking down the street with two hands stretched out
in front, grasping for trees, stop signs or whatever else might be out there.
Well, there it is. Walking in a Winter
Wonderland. With goggles.
Thanks for reading.
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