The GREAT blizzard of 05

In this instance the meaning of the word great is used as large, not better than good.

Let me get this on the table right now, I hate snow. I hate everything about snow: the cold, the wet, the way it impacts daily life, the additional time it takes to do mundane tasks. I hate it all.

Saturday, I awoke and went to get my haircut. As I was sitting in the chair, the barber was telling me about how today we're supposed to get 24 inches, I was like sure whatever. I hadn't seen the weather report, so I thought he was exaggerating much like he was about his partner who had a burst appendix and the amount of time this guy was out of the shop grew from one week to two and a half weeks in about ten minutes. The barber was really pissed that this guy was out that long and said, "If I burst my appendix when I was his age, my father would've told me to do it on a Sunday so I wouldn't miss a day of work."

Sometimes curmudgeons are funny.

After that Aly and I went to check out a place on Highland St. in Somerville. Nice apartment, fairly big, close enough to the T and Davis Square (though Aly wishes it was a bit closer) and the price is awesome. $250 less per month than other places we were looking at. I want to jump on it, but Aly is being a bit more cautious. Hopefully, we'll have a resolution soon.

After that we visited with Father Brian about the results of our compatibility tests that we took back in October. Good news, we passed. We spent an hour and a half talking about the results and what we expect from our relationship and from each other and our friends and family. It was actually really good. Very cathartic to get some things off my chest and listen to what someone else had to say about what I'm feeling.

Fr. Brian is a pretty cool guy, so it's easy to open up to him. We did this all in the St. Mary's rectory, which is like every other rectory I've ever been to, really freaking nice. A lot of people give priestly life a bad rap, but I bet it's not so bad. You get up say Mass, talk to some people, listen to confessions and then go to bed. Everyone is trying to buy their way into heaven, so they bring you food all the time, let you use their vacation homes, no taxes. Of course, there are some shitty parts too: the no sex thing, visiting sick and dying people, being on call 24 hours and funeral masses. I don't know, doesn't sound too bad to me (except for the no sex thing ... that blows [no pun])

After that, we went to the mall. I felt like scaring the crap out of myself so I bought a book about ghosts. If I really wanted to give myself a good scare I should just look at my credit card bill. Also, Brownie called to tell me that he and Cindy were canceling with us tonight. There's no snow as of 4 pm and I think he's being a bit paranoid, but that's ok. It'll be an Aly and Byron night ... we haven't had one of those in a while.

So, we start making our plans for the night and all of a sudden I look outside and it is coming down fast. Damn, this looks pretty bad, I thought to myself. No big deal, we'll just camp out in Brookline and it'll be all nice and romantic like. We plan to walk to a new restaurant called Pomodoro that we've been dying to try. I suggest that we should get a few bottles of wine since we're not going anywhere, Aly agrees. First we go to the Brookline Police Station so I can get my $10 per night parking pass. Sucks that you have to pay $10 a night, but you can't park on the street in Brookline, so this is what you have to do.

I walk in to the station and see a cop, here is the exchange:

Me: You're still selling parking passes tonight, right?
Cop: No.
Me: Huh? Why not?
Cop: Snow emergency.
Me: Ok. Where am I supposed to park?
Cop: Don't know.
Me: I can't park on the street, right?
Cop: Yup.
Me: I can't park in the lot, right?
Cop: Yup.
Me: Then what am I supposed to do?
Cop: Don't ask me.

Ok. Good answer, dick. You're a cop. You're supposed to know what to do. Ugh. So, I tell Aly to pack for a few days, we're going back to Somerville. Something that neither of us wanted to do for two reasons. My apartment is completely falling apart, aside from mice and exploding pipes, we saw that the roof looks as if it is separating from the house. So it's fucking freezing downstairs, but it's like Jamaica upstairs.

Also, Josh and Eddie are having their annual post-Christmas party. Last year was the first year that they had it and it was a disaster. Some guy literally threw his girlfriend across the room when she playfully grazed his neck with a tack. Then some girl drank way too much and laid in the middle of the road and passed out so cold that they had to call an ambulance. And the beer is shit, the buy a keg of Milwaukee's Best, so I'm sitting around my house with a bunch of strangers drinking really crappy brew. No thanks.

Luckily, because of the snow, there was like 10 people there. Not too bad for the time we stayed. Aly and I decided to head out to grab some grub. We've been wanting to try this shady-looking Italian place near Old Magoon's Saloon called Vinnie's. We've heard such awesome things from a cross section of people that we had to check it out. Very good. We ended up getting a bottle of wine and some good food. Despite the walk through the blizzard, it was well worth it. We also had to beg the owner to keep the place open so we could eat.

On the way home, Aly and I got into argument about something really stupid, so we just went straight up to my room to hash it out. It took a bit, but we did. And I think the tension that both of us have been feeling for the last three weeks has dissipated. The thing is, we're both so similar in a lot of ways that we but heads some time. And though I like to pretend I'm all laid back and stuff, I'm not. I'm stubborn, set in my ways and not to mention a hyper passive aggressive who can hold a grudge like no one's business. Which combined with Aly's passion, stubbornness and aggressiveness can lead to some good bouts.

But, like I said, things are good now.

We both woke up in very good spirits on Sunday, despite the promise of two feet of snow. Yes, two feet of snow in Somerville (there was 38 inches in Salem/Marblehead). Two feet in Amesbury sucks, but in Somerville it's choking. The streets are already tiny and littered with cars, so travel is an adventure. At about 1:00 we got the wild idea to spend the day making chili, so we took a walk to the grocery store. We bought a lot of ingredients because in 162 Central all four dudes have girlfriends, which I had no idea about, so there were an extra couple of people in the house. (Andrew and his woman weren't here, they were snowed in in DC).

Aly and I walked to the store, which wasn't too bad and after I brought the groceries inside I decided to dig my car out. Before that, a musing on how people are just dicks, Aly spotted a dude in a Yankees sweat shirt and cap and said, "Go Yanks!" and I just shook my head. He said, "What are you shaking your head for?" Mind you I'm wearing a Sox 2004 World Series cap on my head. I just said something like, "The Yankees."

"Yeah, what about them?"

"They suck," I was getting sort of pissed because the guy was being a dick.

"I have 26 Championship rings, how many do you have?" Actually, you have none.

"You don't have last year's, good work in the playoffs," I retorted (I came up with a million other things to say to this guy after -- which is always the case -- but I was honestly surprised by how much of a cock he was.)

"Yeah, we'll get you next year, don't worry. You were lucky."

"I really doubt that."

Even Aly was like, "Man that guy was an asshole." Typical big mouthed Yankee fan, I said.

So I started shoveling at 3:00 and didn't go inside until 5:00. Two hours it took me, but there were a few reasons. I parked on Browning St., which is a side street off of the road where I live. I had my entire car dug out when a guy who owns a place on that road walked over to me.

Guy: Hey, you're not supposed to park there during snow emergencies.
Me: Really? I didn't know that, thanks for the tip.
Guy: You're lucky you didn't get towed.
Me: Yeah. No kidding.
Guy: I called last night. I called the tow truck on all of your cars on this street (there were at least seven).
Me: Are you serious? Why would you do that?
Guy: Rules are rules.
Me: Are you going to call again tonight?
Guy: Sort of late now, isn't it?
Me: Whatever.

Why would this guy do that? Why would you be a fucking dick during a snow storm? I just stared at that guy for like two minutes with a complete look of disgust and contempt. Dude, it's a snow EMERGENCY, people need to park their cars some place, have a fucking heart. So, to combat towing or a ticket, I went on Central St. and scouted for a spot. Luckily I found one and dug it out. The problem was I had to move my car from it's present spot to the newly dug out place. That's when Aly became invaluable.

She came outside and stood in the space until I could get my car there. And that was about a half hour. Why, you may ask? Because all of the cocksuckers on Browning Street decided to blow all of the snow from their driveways into the street. This made driving a gigantic chore. My car would move two feet and then get stuck, so I would have to get out, shovel five feet out, get back in, drive and then shovel. Not easy. I did manage to get in my spot and when I got there this morning, the car looked fine.

Another thing happened yesterday, these two chicks spent as much time as I did digging their car out of the snow and were just about done when a town snow plow came buy. It took all of the snow it had on it's front end and dumped it right on their car. Just completely reburried it. The women were justifiably pissed off and started yelling at the guy. Being a dick town employee, the guy said (in the most condescending way), "Sweetie, where do you want me to put the snow? I didn't make it snow." The girls were like, quit being a dick and have a heart. The guy said something about them not being real women because they spoke like that, and one girl said that he wasn't a real human being. He took off after that and they had to redig their car out.

Such a dick move.

I don't have to be at work until noon today and I'm debating whether to go in at all. Driving was treacherous this morning when I had to bring Aly to the T. Normally, a 10-minute drive at worst, it took me about an hour. Cars were sliding all over the place, small hills were tough to go up and trying to find a parking spot is going to just suck.

Well, those are some snapshots of a disastrous weekend where three out of every four people were dicks. New Englanders are just assholes, there's no getting around it and situations like this bring out the worst in people (except for the guy who pushed my car up a hill this morning), but at least the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl. They're playing the Eagles, which sort of sucks because if they played the Falcons, Aly's brother would've gone and covered the event. He also would've written a story about growing up in the shadows of Foxborough, which I would've really liked to read because he was a New York Giants fan and those years where he became a football fan, the Pats sucked and were a distant fourth in the consciousness of New England fans.

Oh yeah, Friday night I saw "Napoleon Dynamite". Not that good of a movie. I was really looking forward to seeing it, I don't want to go far as saying it sucked, but it just wasn't very good. Ok. Now I'm done.