FROZEN IN MARCH

I'm not in the mood to write, or think, or communicate. All I really want to do is crawl into bed and hibernate until May or June.

It's mid-afternoon here in the wilds of Tennessee, presently 18 degrees (Fahrenheit, for those of you in Jamaica). The temperature is supposed to drop to 8 (eight) degrees tonight.

Last night an ice storm blew in with howling winds. By dawn everything was covered with snow - but ice seems to be the biggest problem.
In a moment of profound absent-mindedness I completely forgot to check the water pipes and leave the faucets dripping. Miraculously the pipes didn't freeze. I plan to be much more careful tonight.

I'm definitely not in the mood to take photos, but this morning I forced myself to go outside and snap a few pics from the front and back porches. The sun appeared and the glare was so intensely bright that I couldn't see a thing through the camera lens.

I have little else to say. I'm too busy shivering and counting the minutes until spring.
Speaking of minutes and spring  - Daylight Saving Time is upon us and the clocks spring ahead tonight.

I never indulge in this annoying, ridiculous, useless time-saving crap. My clocks will stay exactly as they are. Since I'm existing in the Twilight Zone, time doesn't really matter.

I've been consuming copious amounts of tea, coffee, and soup. And Malt-O-Meal. Today I had Bigelow Royale Raspberry tea, which was wonderful. I most often use evaporated milk in tea and coffee.

I have nothing else to offer today - except for a myriad of complaints, but I'll keep them to myself.

Photos taken this morning.

     

 Bosco by the back door, deciding whether or not to go out (that's my walking stick to the left of him, leaning against the house)

 Bosco went out but then ran back inside. Those are his tracks. Next to his tracks (to the left) are the tracks of another creature - - perhaps a bird or rabbit?? I have no idea. 
(and my big footprint to the right)

Various views from the front porch.

 

WHITE

 

A tangle of wicked winter - - more ice than snow, more branches than sky. Frigid mists that have taken up permanent residence  in the shelter of the forest. The sunless days are bland, monochromatic, void of color. Winter white.

Sightless phantoms gather in the dead of night to ride on ice-encrusted gusts of wind, and shriek with devious laughter as they shake the timid house and rattle thin windows. 

And I yearn for the rescue of a spring that never comes, the impossible promise of rebirth and rejuvenation. The salvation of blossoms and leaves lingering on an unattainable horizon that taunt me with the possibility of a thaw, while I shiver in a prison of ice.

                                       Jon, shivering
                                       in a poetic mode

 

SPRING THAW

Soon after I posted this, I decided to revert it to a draft. There's something about it that I don't like.

 Perhaps it's because I have two entirely unrelated subjects in juxtaposition. Perhaps it's because I'm getting extremely tired of writing about the snow. Perhaps because the old poem that I resurrected is lousy and was rendered even worse with revision - -  and the ancient family history is nobody's business.

At any rate, I'm posting it again against my better judgement. And then I'll move on.



"When I move to Tennessee my adventures will be over. I won't have anything to blog about."

That statement, which I made last October, has come back to bite me in the ass. I've only been here a couple of months and the adventures never end. Eventually they will kill me. 
Texas put the nails in my coffin. 
Tennessee has a burial plot waiting with my name on it.

Actually, things are improving. It got all the way up to 15 degrees last night. Even more exciting - - dramatic drum roll here - - the temperature soared to 35 degrees today and the sun appeared! I broke out into a cold sweat. Had to pinch myself. Thought I died and went to heaven.
Me? In heaven?? No way......

Note: 
The photo above is not my burial plot. It's a statement of triumph that I made today - in honor of having survived this latest blizzard.

Of course, I'm still in a helluva lot of pain from falling on the ice and I'm still snowed in and I'm still without water due to a broken pipe. But - hey! It could be worse. 

All right - enough of this Pollyanna crap. Since "Pessimism" is my middle name, I'll let you know how I really feel. I shoulda moved to the Sahara!!

Jon, control yourself! There are respectable people out there.

I keep hearing that this brutal Tennessee weather is extremely unusual. "Worst winter we had in 200 years."
Yea, right.

Native Californians tell the newcomers:
"Wow, this 9.3 earthquake is so rare! We've never had one like it before."

The Ozark hillbillies told me:
"Wow, this F-6 tornado is so rare! We've never had one like it before."

And so it goes.....

This afternoon

blue skies

The title of this post, Spring Thaw, has a duel purpose. 

I am yearning for a spring thaw, of course. But last night, while in the process of editing a new version of my poetry book, I found this poem entitled Spring Thaw that I wrote when I was in my early 20's. It was published in a literary magazine and then quickly forgotten.

I had never explained why I wrote it, and never wanted it published again. After finding it last night, I've decided to include it in my new book along with a dedication. It's certainly not a good poem but it's interesting for a personal reason.

Spring Thaw

(In memory of my Great Grandmother Sophia Horvath)

In April 
they dragged the river

for her body

waiting patiently under the ice

for months.

She yielded reluctantly,

still obstinate

after all these years.

On the muddy banks
of the Raritan
yellow wildflowers
nodded rumors,
raising their heads to see.

I never knew her.

I only know the stories

told in sporadic whispers:

that she was beautiful

mysterious

aloof

had several husbands

many lovers

and never smiled.

The lonely turbulence

of her shadowed existence

finally unraveled

like a carelessly abandoned

mourning shroud.

When she finally emerged

from the tomb of thinning ice

some say

her lips bore traces

of an intended smile.


She was my maternal great-grandmother, my grandfather's mother. I never saw her. There are no existing photos of her.

When my mother was a little girl she saw her once. Only once. My Mom remembered her as being quiet and cold - -  tall, slender, very well dressed, and extremely beautiful.
It is said that she resembled my mother. 

Everything about my great-grandmother was mysterious. She was possibly murdered but most likely committed suicide. My grandfather's surname was Knoll. Horvath was probably the surname of one of her husbands - or perhaps her maiden name.

I had never thought about her much, but now the great mystery of her haunts me.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE IGLOO........

When we last visited Jon, the newly initiated Tennessee mountain man, he was wallowing in abject misery - - being held hostage in his shack - - oops, we mean mountain retreat - -by a series of endless blizzards, being in agonizing pain due to a stupid -- oops, we mean unfortunate - - - - nasty fall on the ice, and being completely without water due to a busted bursted or broken pipe.

In a valiant attempt to temporarily expunge the harsh, grim reality of his dire situation, he wrote a scathing review - - oops, we mean lengthy assessment - - of the recent Academy Awards, followed by a self indulgent - - oops, we mean extremely interesting - - account of his early days in Hollywood.

If you haven't read it, you should. It will enhance your life with almost unbearable enchantment (previous post)

As we return to Jon and his miserable plight, he is still snowed in and experiencing new, previously unknown, levels of wretchedness:

Pine tree in my back yard

(photo taken this morning)

Well, if I survived that introduction, I can survive anything. No, I haven't lost my mind (or what's left of it). I'm just using cheap ploys in order to pique your interest. 

The good news is that I'm still alive (more or less). The bad news is that I'm still in an enormous amount of pain from my fall on the ice, I'm still snowed in with no way to get out, and I'm still without water due to a broken pipe (after an entire week).

I was surviving on a few cans of Pepsi and a case of beer. I eventually ran out of Pepsi (I still have most of the beer) and had to eat snow for moisture. I didn't have any liquids at all for three days.

The phone lines were down, all the roads were impassable, and the power was out everywhere. Fortunately, the power here in the mountains was restored much more quickly than the power in town (imagine that!).

With no water, I've been forced to use a makeshift outhouse in the woods. Last night I was compelled to go out there at 3:00 am and a roving band of coyotes came by and howled. Scared the shit out of me. No pun intended, of course.

About two days ago (or three - I can't remember) my cousin and some others were able to get out of their driveways. They brought plenty of water and other supplies and literally saved my sorry ass. Due to the snow and ice, the supplies literally had to be dragged by hand up to my house. I now have enough things in order to survive until the predicted thaw next week. And, believe me, I'm eternally greatful. My cousin is a saint.

Trying to get a plumber here to fix the pipes is an impossibility. One promised he'd come (a week ago) but never showed up. Another one never answers his phone. And the others ignore my messages. I'll eventually have to fix it myself, but I'm presently in too much pain to be crawling around under a house.

Despite the pain, however, I did manage to grab a shovel and knock a lot of the ice and snow off the roof today. And I fed the birds and the muskrat. The muskrat resides under my back porch. I didn't encourage this, but now that he's here I can't turn him out.

I'm keeping occupied by blogging (as if you didn't guess) and editing two books - which hopefully will be on Amazon soon. 

After I post this I'm going to make dinner and watch the silent 1921 version of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (it's on YouTube, with the great Carl Davis musical score).

It's late afternoon as I'm writing this. The sun has finally appeared. 

Do we dare assume that this is a ray of hope?
Tune in next time, for another exciting episode of
Jon - Tennessee Mountain Man.

My front porch this morning.

I'm in no mood to swing.

LIKE A RUNAWAY SLED

My front yard property on Monday,

after the first snowfall

I felt really rotten this morning.

How rotten did you feel, Jon?

I felt like Ethan Frome after his last sleigh ride with Mattie. A free-fall with a crash.

Wow. Elaborate.

My day was off to a bad start even before I got out of bed. My eleven-month-old kitty Scruffy always wakes me up. She climbs up on the bed headboard and jumps on me. Today, she climbed up on the headboard and......sneezed on me. Right in the face. A liberal shower of feline germs.

I'm talking abundant liberal. Not politics liberal.

I grabbed my cell phone and snapped this photo just before she sneezed. It's not upside down. That's exactly how she looked from my vantage point.

Get a kitten, they said.
It'll be fun, they said.

Yesterday, I somehow threw my back out of whack. As I was crawling out of bed this morning the spasms were so bad that I fell flat on the floor. 

To compound matters, I've been having severe - and I mean severe - pain in my toes.
Yes, you heard it correctly. Toes. All ten of them.

Heck, the last time I ever had pain in my toes, it was because somebody had been biting them. No need to panic, it happened long ago when I was young and soused.
This time, to my knowledge, no teeth were involved. 

I was in such agonizing pain from my back and toes that I couldn't get up off the floor. As I was crawling towards the bedroom door - wondering how I was going to wash my face - Scruffy suddenly decided to play. She grabbed one of my bare feet and dug ALL of her sharp claws into it - relentlessly hanging on as I crawled. My screams of agony echoed through the mountains......and it's rumored that they were heard in Nashville.

After I recovered enough to resume thinking, I realized that my toes hurt because I had been wearing two pairs of tight socks to keep my feet warm.
The socks must have completely cut off the circulation. Fortunately my toes didn't turn black and drop off.

So how are you doing now, Jon?

I'm still limping, but I'm wearing looser socks.

You're weird, Jon.

Weird, but immensely entertaining.

My yard on Monday during the first snowfall

as seen from my back porch

The cold weather is the Big News (capitalized for emphasis). I'm a Tennessee virgin. I honestly hadn't expected the winters here to be so harsh.

Let's see. It snowed on Monday, I think. And Tuesday, I think. And this morning for sure. Eight inch accumulation.The high temperature today was a brisk 16.

Tonight (it's only 8:00 p.m. as I'm writing this) the temperature is supposed to plummet to minus 15. I said minus. That's cold enough to kill a penguin. Or Al Gore. Aw, settle down. I couldn't resist.

Hey, I'm writing this humorous stuff while I'm in an incredibly bad mood. Could you imagine how funny I'd be if I actually felt good?

View from my office window

(one of the spare bedrooms)

This frigid weather is definitely impeding all my activities. I'm not complaining. I've lived through winters far worse than this. I'm just stating a fact. I can't unpack any of the things in the garage. It's so cold out there that I can only tolerate it for a minute. Or less.

Late last night I ran out of kitty litter. Not for me. For the cats. Fortunately I had another big bag, but I'd left it out in the car. And I had to force myself to go out and get it.

The eight inches of snow had turned into solid ice. My entire property is on a steep mountainside. I immediately slipped on the ice and slid all the way down to my car. In retrospect, that's probably how I hurt my back.

If the car wasn't there to break my slide, I would have undoubtedly ended up in Kentucky. The door on my car was frozen shut and I literally had to pry it open, using my fingernails to crack the ice. By then my fingers, toes, and family jewels were completely numb. I honestly couldn't feel my balls for several hours.

Don't try to visualize this. It will corrupt you.

Carrying a 50 lb. bag of kitty litter back up to the house while walking on ice wasn't easy.
I only had two thoughts:

1. God, please don't let me fall again.

2. Those damn cats shit more than I do!

Bosco and Scruffy

looking at the snow from kitchen window

Note:
Ever since I started this new blog Lone Wolf Concerto I've noticed that readership is sparse and seems to be dwindling rapidly. Many (but not all) of my faithful friends who used to read Lone Star Concerto have vanished.

 I've thought about abandoning this blog, but I'm addicted to it. I enjoy distributing my thoughts for public consumption - whether the public is there or not. Most of all I enjoy entertaining myself.

Rose from Canada (Life After Fifty) told me that she's been having an enormous amount of trouble leaving comments on my blog. I haven't had any other complaints about this. I checked the settings and they seem to be okay.