Vic Socotra

02 March 2009

March Lion

Didn't see this snowy morning coming any more than I would have predicted the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Some all-source analyst I turned out to be. Missed the collapse of the Soviet Union, didn’t believe common sense about finance and real estate and here we are, buried.

I have been observing the buds on the branches that sway almost to the balcony railing swell with promise, and the green shoots insistently poking their way above ground. Odd that this fiercest winter storm should come raring in like a lion, when I had begun to think only of the lamb.

I had a fairly aggressive Monday scheduled today, but that is clearly not going to happen.

I spent  the first few minutes of consciousness clearing off the company e-mail, which is the electronic equivalent of shoveling snow. I noticed the 1130 meeting with the Futurists was canceled, something that they obviously should have seen coming; a proposal delivery to Bolling Air Force Base was mercifully pushed back to Wednesday. The last thing remaining is an eight o'clock meeting on another prospective piece of business that would have had me in the shower already to don prim and formal business garb, but will now be a conference call from the safety and comfort of my little home office.

So that is the morning, and with the exception of people frantically e-mailing one another across the snowy wasteland, in bunny slippers, there appears to be not much going on that could not be deferred to some other time.

The Congress will not be able to direct the Treasury Department to print any more money, though I suspect the presses will run anyway, chunking out the long sheets of debt.

I talked to a couple pals late in the afternoon yesterday about one of the several elephants in the national living room. One pal out on the Left Coast mentioned that she has to find $700 bucks a month to cover health care for one of her kids. Another, a distinguished man of letters, described his excellent plan, negotiated intentionally by the academic union over the years with the conscious intent of trading salary for fringes.

If those fringes are directly taxed, it will be a rude awakening, and break faith with decades of deliberate strategy. The academic community is one of the most fervent supporters of The Change, though I am not sure this is what they had in mind.

I am neutral on the matter, since my coverage sucks, and people need help. But I am convinced that whatever help comes from Washington will make at least as many unhappy as the other way around.

Happiness is such a fleeting thing. Starts with health, naturally, and memories of being utterly in the pink came and went. I went to sleep last night after watching a Tom Selleck made-for-TV-movie. Tom and I have a special sort of relationship, since his Magnum  PI television series was filming in the Islands when I was younger and had chestnut hair and a cocky grin.

Actually, I think we both did, Tom Selleck and I.

It was not uncommon to see the production company and their trailers set up in some of the exotic locales that were just part of the daily drive-around. He would occasionally hang out at the Outrigger Canoe Club at Waikiki Beach, where he could sometimes be observed relaxing like a real person.

We had our health, and we had our optimism and we had the gentle trade winds.

So, watching the parabola of his career over the years, from hunk to harried small-town police chief with a penchant for the scotch bottle was interesting. He has a Golden Retriever with him all the time who never says a thing, but has quite expressive eyes.

Anyhow, before I trundled down the hall toward the Big Bed I glanced out the window to see how the Big Storm was doing. The relentless snow and increasing wind had just turned the corner on the temperature of the asphalt, and the edges were starting to blur from black to soft-white tinged with gray where it had melted. The gust was just picking up, caressing the side of the building and the white flakes danced in the air.

Sometime during the night things got serious, and it is a frozen white landscape. I can see lights charging down Route 50 toward the city, since the center of mass of the storm is east of town. Highly unusual. Winds continue to gust, bringing the skin-temperature down to the teens. The second wave of the snow has just arrived, and is expected to continue to noon.

Quiet here, when the government is frozen, with nothing happening other than the wind and the dancing snow.

Close Window