As its another weekend, renewed spackles of snow. Tiny constructs with their constraints on the cold concrete.
So my mind backed up to where I was at the start of the April First blizzard. To the first woman of us at dawn who tried to plow through with our subcompacts, would there even be any point to the effort to get going? The blizzard blast was already piled more than three feet high at the front of the driveway bent to the street, anyway, due to the plowing already on steroids. So where was she going to travel so urgently? She was emotionally snowed under by the need to get to work.
That lady, said my brother as the key mover whenever a push was needed, had her parking brake on the entire time they were trying to move her suddenly-seeming-vast vehicle. Gimme a break, he added, like said to Diamond Dave in the Van Halen song.
But between a full three of them, pushing and pulling, they made a bit of headway, eventually … Then falling back though.
So the pails of sand to use from the quite old apartment building at the top of one level of stairs, and bottom of another, would thus not be needed. Yet.
I saw her much later, I thought, as we finally were able to leave the New Richmond lot, only on foot. Oops, a different Asian woman. You are someone else, but I am still right here, perched on the snowbank’s crest.
In a place a short piece away, the license plate Out On The Street said APT 1931. Plausible for the year of construction, methinks, buried parking lot and otherwise.
When we got back there early that evening, after delivering the goods to Hudson via U-Haul only, as the main car with snow almost to the hood was still right there. I checked my text messages, and the latest one said that the gray van would be ticketed and towed come Monday morning. That would avoid someone having to put in more overtime, I’m guessing. But could you take the towing plow and push us, please. We’d welcome that.
The leasing company was an entity WE had reached out to early in the morning, but following that time and their assurances, many texts followed that, for another time, threatened they’d tow you out of the snow to an impound lot. On just that day, I counted almost a dozen since the morn.
They were serious about their craft, so inside the place, get right what they will have to view at inspection. As I vacuumed with my final thrusts — yes I will do that — I kept finding that the cord was getting caught in the underlying grooves in those winter boots, then would not pull loose. So, I thought, reposition the way you step, hit a different spot on the bottom rubber sole. Hey, do you know how many grooves there are at the bottom of most every boot?
Or trees to stomp on with those grooved boots. There would be that too, when finally leaving New Richmond. As we progressed southwest, the number of trees and their bowing became greater in number, dropping and crossing further and further into the edge of roadways.
The Sub House woman later provided to these hungry movers … subs. But almost not. Just info. They would normally open at 11 a.m., but this was a different day that brought lots of power outages, including at the new apartment, however only overnight. But the Sub House wasn’t able to fully open until 1 p.m. and that meant their daily bread would have to be baked fast, with one ear given to the customers at the same time.
Fast forward to the Smilin’ Moose version of the outage. It fried their sound system, the deejay said, so the music volume was low as a subtle bass line. Tell that to the new bride with her cowgirl party who just wanted to dance. I approached her and joked that her hat should have been black. But all she wanted to do was dance, and the softer music just wasn’t doing it. So could I put in my pitch for greater volume, but was told it wasn’t going to be. Sorry.
How about greater control of my aching muscles? Mark the pharmacist plays Dr. Phil. Twice. Could all this moving, some of it weighty furniture, be aggravating to my Tourette Syndrome muscles? And what about the stray voltage past, fry those neurons? I got one “no” and one “don’t know.”
And what’s that roar? Vacuum running guy. No boots this time. Out in the parking lot. Remove tree trunk residue.
The snow on them might melt early, then freeze as evening fell. (Thus became efficient for smaller couples to do their thing early. These were dads and their young daughters parading in holiday pastel dress.) The same process to follow on from the weather pattern was shown with customer traffic in downtown Hudson going through the next week — and into the party zone it becomes most every weekend that introduces Easter.
At the Moose that Friday night, it was a few gaggles of college kids who were home, and three who looked like they could be their parents.
So we are in Wisconsin, so let’s party, spring being nature’s way to promote it, Agave Kitchen said. Where else did they learn? The retort: “What else is there to do in North Dakota?”
Across the aisle, a frat guy was wearing a Journal Sentinel T-shirt, and the Milwaukee paper said “No Sweet,” an apparent reference to the bevy of Badger basketball bounty, or bust.
I had to wiggle past the guy to get out the door, for my way home. But as he turned around, it was a differently shirted guy. Boozy and chatty. To say something, I told him I used to write for the MJS, and all he wanted to talk about concerning my industry was this: “So what to you think of what AI has done to it?” After internet.
Just basically left with blathering blogging, bloke.