Winter

Winter.

There's no snow but after an exceptionally muggy and mild December, January arrives with a bitter and sharp toothed cold that reaches into my bones.  Michael's old house is a warren of cross drafts.  The cold leaches in under the doors and around the window frames, seeps up through the floor and down from the roof.  Because of the ragged and neglected ductwork under the house, what heat there is finds its way outside.  I raise the thermostat and switch on the space heater but after several hours, it's still just 44 outside, 53 in his office, and barely 62 in mine. I can't find the words for how much I loathe winter.  When I reach the point that I can't stand another minute of it, I snatch up my pen, my notebook, the portable telephone and herd the dogs to the second floor.  I'm trying with every fiber of my being not to feel homicidal about Michael being in sunny and warm Hollywood for the past four days but  it isn't a terribly successful effort.  Between the cold and the care of the work dogs - who are, as usual, determined to wreak as much havoc as possible and test my patience to its very core - I'm feeling quite willing to lock the front door and flee the scene. 

I don't do it, of course.  Sometimes I regret that I was taught my daddy's idea of responsibility rather than my mother's casual unaccountability but there it is.  

The next day warms up considerably and Michael finally overcomes the trials and tribulations of air travel and makes it home although the return trip - most of which was spent in the confines of a Texas airport - has not done him any good.  He's congested and sneezing, red eyed and sniffling and his vision is worse than ever.  I suspect if he were to drive and be stopped, he'd lose his license altogether so I volunteer to drive him to the Walmart.  Among other things, a case or two of designer dogfood has gone missing - we'd had a somewhat fiery email exchange over this when I'd mentioned it - he'd insisted that he'd double checked before leaving and there should be more than a dozen cans left even if he was a day late getting home.

Be that as it may, I'd written him back, You're still out.  I'm bringing some spare Pedigree.

Who steals dogfood? he growls at me with a dark look toward our only other employee's desk, an odd but extremely engaging young man who comes in part time, works strictly on commission and spends a great deal of time organizing and planning his work but never seems to get around to actually doing it.

And who asked him to clean the kitchen or dust or vacuum or organize my closets, I want to know, he demands with a scowl, I pay him to see to the dogs after you've gone, not to clean house!

We've had a variation of this conversation a hundred times and I have no more answers this time than I've had multiple times before.

It's a mystery, I tell him, let's go to Walmart.

We go by the backroads because like so many people I know, he's always in search of the next shortcut, as if a red light might cause some sort of fatal delay.  We roam the aisles, stocking up on 20-packs of paper towels, a half dozen cases of Coke, and enough dogfood to last til spring.  I read him brands and prices and at the check out, swipe his card and press the appropriate buttons for him.  It makes me realize that his eyes are far worse than he's willing to admit - he's been on steroids for years for chronic iritis - and I make a mental note:  EYE DOCTOR.  FIRST THING TOMORROW.  It will be a battle I'm determined to win.

Winter, I think to myself, is a dark time.