The city has been at a halt the past few days with sub-freezing temperatures and rain . I will stipulate that, had my college roommate in Colorado not been so generous in loaning me her banana-colored Chevette, I may not have had the skills to drive in this weather, either. Which explains how, as a second-generation Oregonian, I am able to stand in solidarity with my friends from other places who are perplexed at our collective inability to navigate weather that is normal for most of the rest of the country. My friend from Ohio tells me that careers there have been destroyed over a politician’s inability to manage clearing winter roads in any meaningful way, but we apparently have very different standards here. I think about how much I enjoy the news reports of traffic-related chaos when it rains in L.A. (rookies).

The parking lot at the store yesterday was crowded with young parents pulling children on toboggans. Clearly, there are more REI shoppers in the neighborhood than when I grew up here. In the silver thaw of ’79-’80, most of the city lost power for three weeks. My dad still delivered the mail everyday – wearing golf shoes. Our family stayed hunkered down in the front room, doorways blocked with blankets, with heat from the woodstove, while branches broke and fell and electrical transformers exploded into bright kelly-green sparks. It may have been the only year that I transcended my deep resentment of the miserable, hot work of cutting wood every summer so it dried out in time to use later.

I came upon this solo boot while out walking (ancient Country Fair mug for scale). I like to picture a small human getting bounced off the sled on a particularly tricky curb, laughing and stumbling-around like a drunkard, and subsequently blowing out of their gear. I experienced a similar “yard-sale” (as skiers say) one time while trying to use a Wendy’s bathroom in my field gear at another job. No idea why using a public restroom made sense, but I just now remembered that, at one time, I had achieved proficiency at pulling my pants up and down while wearing a gun. Just not that particular day. Naturally, I held onto the gun and let everything else fall. By the grace of God, my radio button wasn’t activated when it hit the floor – there would have been no way to disguise the telltale bathroom acoustics had I needed to explain myself on the air. I had lost dignity when I left the stall.

Since the temperature was in the 20s yesterday, I am intrigued that the loss of the boot escaped the notice of a supervising human. Hopefully there was cocoa and forgiveness on the back end of the excursion.