Popsicle Toes
OK, who has cabin fever? Raise your hand! That’s what I thought – me too, thanks to the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic.
Well, me and the Missus got our second round of COVID shots last week. The nurse that shot me in the arm tried to cheer me up with the admonition it wouldn’t hurt. Well, that’s easy for her to say but, to tell the truth, and I always do…well, almost always…it didn’t hurt much at all.
Our recent bout of freezing, snowy weather had me shivering in my boots and left with a bad case of Popsicle Toes.
“Popsicle Toes are always froze. Popsicle Toes, you’re so brave to expose all those Popsicle Toes. You’ve got the nicest North America this sailor ever saw. I’d like to feel your warm Brazil and touch your Panama. But your Tierra del Fuegos are nearly always froze…” (“Popsicle Toes” – Michael Franks – 1976)
Fortunately, I have a warm waterbed to keep us comfy and warm on those long, sub-freezing cold nights (as long as we still have electricity, and this time we did). Luckily, we have an area here at the stately Motley Manor that has a good old-fashioned gas wall heater. This is the living room-dining room-kitchen complex where we get to play Little House on the Prairie on those freezing cold days and nights. It also comes in handy for thawing out my toes following endless hours of shoveling snow.
“We gotta see-saw until we thaw those Popsicle Toes. Popsicle Toes are always froze. Popsicle Toes, you’re so brave to expose those Popsicle Toes.” (Michael Franks, Diana Krall, etc.)
So, after three days of shoveling, I sure hope I don’t need to do that again this winter or even this spring – but who am I kidding? It’s only February and we could always get another March Miracle, which has happed several times in the past.
Well, the driveway was finally cleared out so the missus could safely navigate its steep, but still slippery, slope. But then I suggested it would be easier for her to get back out to the street at 6 a.m. the next day if her car were facing forward, so I bravely volunteered to do this for her.
Well, I got her turned around all right, but only after doing a “360” in the middle of the driveway, which subsequently rearranged all the snow and ice I’d been shoveling for the past three days. I should have listened to her when she suggested we get a snow blower! Also, luckily, Mick Hill swung by on one of those chilly mornings, when we had a three-foot-high berm at the end of our driveway, and pushed it all the way to kingdom come.
Thanks, Mick, and I finally found my lost newspaper three weeks later in the garden after all the snow had melted.
Keep it flyin’, Uncle Mott