Reasons To Be Happy

Reasons To Be Happy



There are many reasons to be happy.  First  a few date & event-related notes, and then a real-life true story.

  • Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I am a romantic at heart, no doubt
    about it.  Any holiday that celebrates love is okay by me. 
    Susan is my Valentine.  And that's for the tenth straight
    year.  What more could a grown man want?

  • Spring Training begins on Thursday.  Yesterday's NY Daily
    News carried a half dozen Baseball articles.  The great joy of the
    great game is right around the corner.

  • The Sopranos returns next month.  Even Sundays will be
    better soon.  And shortly after that (April, I think) Huff returns
    to Showtime.  The promos on Showtime promise that Weeds is
    coming back in due time, as well.  Thank goodness for TiVo,
    Sundays will be crowded on the What's Playing list.

  • Rumor has it that Debbie Galant has a book coming out any day now.  She is  the Barista-in-Chief at daily must-read site Baristanet.  Good luck to Debbie on it
    -- she's a friend, a wonderful writer, and she and her husband have
    raised a young Yankee fan in their household.  And also a budding
    thespian, as well.  Much to admire and respect.  And now a book, to boot!


I continue to convalesce from this dreadful malady. 
That's a
reason to be happy.  I am not back to full boar by a long shot,
but every day does feel a little better than the one before. If one is
not at full boar, is one at partial boar?  Or perhaps the status
is Piglet.


  • This major, record-setting blizzard came -- gobs of snow,
    shivers-inducing cold weather, a potential for havoc on the
    streets.  And yet all seems to have worked out just fine. 
    The roads were clear this morning, most mass transit is back in
    order.  Up where I live in the Northwest suburbs of the NY
    Metropolitan area the emergency response crews were out in full force. 
    Streets were sanded, plowed, and then sanded and plowed again and
    again.  No major power outages.  No reports of tons of
    fender-benders or spin-outs.  It seems the majority of people
    heeded the warnings, stayed inside (and thus stayed warm), and let the
    emergency services crews do their thing.  Three cheers all around
    for weathering the blizzard like a bunch of pro's!



And now a heartwarming and true story.
 
I wrote it in an e-mail to
a buddy in the UK, and realized it might make for a good blog
entry.  I mentioned it in another e-mail to a friend who'd
inquired about my health, and thought,  hmm, should I blog
this?  Then I recounted it via phone to a another friend (and excellent blogger) who told
me in the City it seemed the storm had left New Yorkers in one big
hurry.  She, too, opined that this story was
blogworthy.  So here goes:




This Little Village (the kindness of neighbors)



Up where I am there was a little less snow than in NYC.  We got
around 18 or 20 inches.  The  County emergency response crews
are far better at this sort of
thing than the city guys.  Plows, salt trucks and snow spreaders
were out all night
Saturday and all of Sunday.  Major streets, back streets,
neighborhoods, even bus stops, train stations and other important
commuter areas and arteries were all ready to go this morning.

I went out this afternoon to see how badly my car might have been
snowed on, snowed in, barriered by the plows, etc.  Despite this being
the heaviest snow in years (although I think up here we got hit worse
back in 1996), my car was less covered or blocked this time than was the
case in lesser snowfalls past.


Thinking it would take me about an hour to clean the snow off the car
and then some more time backing it out of my space, past the plowed-in
snow-wall barrier, I left ample time.  And since I am on doctor's
orders not to overdo things, I wanted to be able to pace this 
activity, perhaps over two days if necessary.


When I got there the good news
was that it wasn't so severe; the bad news was that there was enough
snow sitting as high as the bottom of the car doors (roughly 16
inches), and about a yard of snow on that side of the car.  So I
could
open the driver and driver-side rear door (to start it up, put on the
defrost and also get the brush from the back seat area), but due to the
snow between me and the car -- and the ice beneath the snow-- I was too
unsure of my footing (crutches, lack of sure-footedness, ice, difficult
maneuver through the snow and into the car) to get in.  Opening
the doors had leveled off the snow as far as the swivel range of the
doors, but it remained a risky endeavor.

I asked a nearby feller (with whom I have a passing pleasant
acquaintance, no more, no less) who works 2 doors down from where I
park if he would start the car for me.  He agreed immediately, and when
he saw the yard of snow it was apparent why I was reluctant to chance
it.  He started the car, then asked me if he should back it out for
me.  Lucky me, I thought, and answered yes.

This car is an automatic.  At
times like this I really miss driving the stick.  But this feller
manages to successfully rock the car (!!) and maneuver it out of the
space.  Then he drives it over to just in front of his garage and asks
me to wait a moment.  Seconds later, out comes one of his co-workers,
with a big huge industrial broom.  Flat, wide, and with a long pole.

In under two minutes this fellow had completely cleaned off my car. 
And he was very careful and complete.

Am I a lucky guy, or what?!

I thanked them profusely, and went on my merry way.  I am so thankful
and appreciative of my good neighbors.


This little village is a wonderful place to live