got a big snowstorm on friday night and basically i was in denial until the very last minute, and when i had to i finally got to driving around in it and shoveling the walks. i can do it. i've lived in snow country for most of my years and this is just what we do. i had my chance to move to cali or texas or even mexico, and i didn't. so now i scrape the windshield. naturally a really cold spell came right behind the snow and froze up everything especially the streets that they were too slow to plow and that were already a little packed in. so now there are a few that are solid ice and the main ones are actually quite reasonable, but i have to go to oquawka this afternoon and there's this one high bluff over it where you go down a steep hill to get to the town, and in my dreams at least if you can't stop you roll right down through the town and into the mississippi.

well that's an exaggeration, and i'll be ok, but in some ways i'm kind of dragging. my son now has three visitors with nothing better to do than live off a disabled kid, but we don't take a hard line and simply kick them out even though we can't really afford to feed them. it's like they're in suspension. no money is a permanent condition, and slightly-warm place with occasional food is better than what they're used to anyway. so they're not going anywhere even though my son has said it's a little too much. none of the three of us, son, wife, or I, is ready to just order them out.

one was here for a court date. what happened happened two years ago, when he was 16, but involved my son so i felt partially responsible to take him down to the county courthouse forty miles down the road and wait. fortunately they dismissed the case but again made us wait all afternoon. i felt like i was doing penance for every crime i ever committed and got away with. just waiting, in a courthouse, for them to look carefully at his case, which granted, was a little complicated. people were friendly. but eventually i took to pacing in the upstairs of that courthouse. how much penance can you stand?

to show how much i'm living in my head, i've come up with a philosophical question. if snow covers a stop sign, do you still have to stop? can you argue that you didn't know it was there, even if you've been at that intersection a few times and should know it's there? just curious.

blog reports are in, in case anyone is curious about how it goes, maintaining and tracking 28 personal blogs and 9 commercial ones. i do a pretty crappy job overall, but they are entrenched in the system and get lots of visitors. you can find some of them by going down in the template to the "some-o'-mine" tab where you might get clicked over to any possible thing. or follow the lighthouses, they'll take you on a little tour. my own carousel. if one blog gets a visitor, several will.

have a good holiday season and stay in touch!