Christopher Donahue

Back in January, I blogged in  Snowstorms and Squirrels Nests about a remarkable squirrels nest that was in a tree in the back-yard.

Unfortunately, I have to report that the squirrels nest did not make it through the winter.  Two weeks ago it had a hole right through the middle. I would have taken a picture but the snow was too deep to wade out into the yard. Two days ago I went out and took a picture of the tatters that are left. Here are before and after shots:

The nest made it most of the way through this epic winter which is pretty amazing. It certainly made it through the two worst storms. Even more amazing is how many squirrels nests in the area did make it.

On a happy note, there seems to be no shortage of squirrels in the back yard eating birdseed so I’m confidant they survived the break-up of their nest!

As I suspected back in January, they were nuts to go out  on a limb like that!

copyright 2015 Magnus Incognito

They decided to leave her bedroom just as it was on that day in August. They didn’t say anything openly about it, they just tacitly agreed and left the room alone. Not a thing had been moved or changed. He knew Emily would go in and sit on the bed.  He didn’t know how much time she spent there when he was at work. But sometimes he’d come home and Emily would be up there. He couldn’t bring himself to disturb her, not because he didn’t want to be a bother, but because he couldn’t bear to go up there himself.

The garage was another matter. It was almost spring and he had to move out some of the clutter. He started moving out  old patio furniture and found the bike behind  a tabletop on its side with the legs removed. The little bicycle, pink frame, white seat, white handle grips.

He was angry at himself that he couldn’t remember the last time he heard the bell ring. He remembered her joy when she got it, her birthday, teaching her to ride, seeing her ride without training wheels for the first time. He could hear the bell now and her laughter.

He gently touched the handlebars and felt himself becoming overwhelmed. He left the bicycle there just as he found it.

copyright 2015 Magnus Incognito

The last week of winter is finally upon us.  Winter still has us in its icy grip, but the calendar says it has to let go sometime.   With each moment, the earth moves inexorably in its orbit around the sun toward the vernal equinox.  Temperatures have to rise sooner or later. The snow is still piled high, the sidewalks treacherous with ice melt that has frozen overnight.  The days are lighter and the snow piles a bit smaller.  It’s still cold, but the arctic chill is only at night.

When fall comes, I reminisce about the summer. But when spring comes, I can’t remember the winter. Like someone waking from fever, I’ll wake up and it will be spring, I’ll banish the aggravations of dealing with snow, snow, and more snow from my mind. I do this once a year.  Every year.  I put winter behind me and forget. Like a bad dream. I’ll forget my rituals for dealing with snowstorms, my hats and gloves and boots.  I’ll put all of that away and out of my mind.

Until we go round in orbit, and winter gets us in its icy grip again!

copyright 2015 Magnus Incognito

In the February of my mind, it is always winter, a timeless place. The days blur together with nothing to differentiate them. Whether it is near the start or end of the month, it doesn’t matter. It is always just February, wintry February. Days and nights  of blizzards, or clear blue days with nights of brilliant stars, with a brutal cold seemingly out of space.

All just like the February we have been living through lo these past 28 days.

In Dante’s Inferno, when Dante finally gets to the center of hell, he finds it to be frozen, ice covered. In Hell, it must always be February.

But for us, Spring is only a forced march away.

copyright 2015 Magnus Incognito

Yet another Blizzard has walloped Boston. I have reconciled myself to the new reality: I live in ski country. To say we are snowed in is an understatement. We are several snowstorms past too much snow. A hard, bad winter’s worth of snow in the stretch of twenty five days or so.   I cannot even think of trying to dig out because of the howling winds. I haven’t had a full week of work in three weeks. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but the work is starting to pile up  in drifts and eddys like the snow.  I only braved going outside to shovel clear a sheltered spot to put down some bird seed for my avian  friends. We have lots of food and coffee. Tons of books. The only foreseeable problem is the power going out. We have candles and some little cans of sterno if that happens. How many brownie can a person eat?

The thought of digging out, yet again, is daunting. The constant struggle against winter  takes a psychological toll. Snow shoveling can do that. Winter has no respect for man or woman.  It reduces you to the level of a shoveling brute. Worse than an animal, because animals don’t shovel.

One of our neighbor snapped after the last snow storm. We were out shoveling when we noticed him walking down the middle of the unplowed street, cup of coffee in his hand, laughing and talking to himself, wearing only pajamas and slippers. His wife told us he woke up that morning, looked outside, realized he had to shovel yet again.  He started laughing uncontrollably. The thought of yet again putting in a couple hours of back-breaking manual labor broke him.

Another neighbor burrowed through the snow banks until he could crawl under his back porch.  He tried to hibernate away the winter curled up in the leaves and dirt. Emergency services took him away.

It’s only a matter of time before we all break. We have to watch out for each other. Wach for the signs.

I think I will go make some French toast.

copyright 2015 Magnus Incognito

It has been the snowiest week in Boston (recorded) history and things are getting desperate.

West Roxbury. Monday morning, February 2, 2015, I was standing at the bus stop in another hellacious, blinding snowstorm.   The snow was coming down sideways in stinging, slanting sheets. Only plows and a few trucks were making their way through the snow clogged streets. I was standing knee deep  in snow-plowed dirty, soft-snow-mush with no buses in sight, chatting with the only other pedestrian crazy enough to be out trying to get to work. Her name was Deena and she works as a waitress at a pub in Roslindale. She looked a little worse for the wear and tear. Like she had been up late the previous night celebrating the New England Patriots Superbowl victory. Plus, she had no gloves. I thought about whether I had another pair to give her. Nope.

We waited for a bus for almost a half-hour, when a snow covered 4-wheel drive mini-SUV pulled over. The driver got out and shouted if we wanted a ride. He just drove in from Dedham and he didn’t see any buses coming our way so he offered to give a lift to the Forest Hill T station. For a second,  I sized up the good Samaritan to see if he looked like a serial killer. He looked harmless. The waitress and I looked at each other. We jumped in. She got in the back behind the driver. I rode shotgun.

The driver was a really nice guy. His name was John and he was going to work in Cambridge. He said was originally from Columbia, and they don’t get a lot of snow down there. He was obviously very happy to be navigating the treacherous streets in his new Toyota Rav 4, and happy to be giving people rides.  We had one seat left open so we pulled over and asked some woman at the next bus stop if she wanted a lift. She declined. That wasn’t the case with the exchange student from China at the bus stop after that. The exchange student thought about it for a second, then jumped right in! We didn’t get her name, but she was happy to get a lift.  We chatted up a storm of our own as we crept along the snow covered street.

After about twenty minutes, John dropped us at the subway station. We thanked him and he went on his way. I’m sure he picked up new passengers on the way to Cambridge.

Despite the blizzard, we all had fun.

copyright 2015 Magnus Incognito

There’s an old New England saying:

You can tell how bad the winter will be by how high the squirrels make their nests.

That’s why I got worried when I saw this particular squirrel’s nest in the tree behind our house.

I first noticed it walking home in late November, the leaves had just fallen, revealing a large squirrels nest way up in one of the back-yard maples. It caught my eye not only because it was so high up, but because it was huge. Even from a half block away it looked big,  leaf pile high up in the branches.

If a squirrel’s nest way up high, and huge, meant anything, it looked like we were due for a really bad winter. But the nest was so huge and precariously placed, I began to wonder about the wisdom of my furry friends in making their home way out on a limb. It looked  like the nest wouldn’t make it through the first big storm.  But then again, according to the old adage, the squirrels know what they are doing!

As fate would have it, the Winter has been pretty mild this year and I was beginning to wonder about veracity of the squirrel nest weather  forecasting system. That is, until last Saturday when we got our first mild snowstorm.  The squirrel’s nest had no problem with that storm an actually came through with a nice snow encrusted roof.

The real test came mid-week when we had a 36-hour blizzard with wind gust allegedly up to 70 M.P.H. I thought the nest would have been blown to tatters by the gale force winds. but my furry pals made it. The nest lost it’s snowy roof and some of the leaves on top but is still hanging on up there. Must be one heck of a ride inside.

We shall if it makes it through the winter. There are two months to go and there’s a storm due with a foot of snow in a couple of days.

All I know is that those squirrels’  had to be nuts to have built a nest out on a limb like that!

copyright 2015 Magnus Incognito

Nothing says Winter like a January evening with sleet and snow. I’m reading Crime and Punishment during my commute these days. And on this particular wintry night, I think sometimes, my life is like a Russian Novel.

It’s five o’clock. I get up to leave but look in on my supervisor to wish him a good weekend. He is passed out drunk at his desk  and snoring loudly. An empty vodka bottle lays on the floor, a shot glass near his upturned hand on the desk.  I could have left hours ago, he’s been passed out that long. I blow a candle out near a mess of papers before he sets the place on fire.  He’s a petty official who has recently been transferred here from Siberia but he’s been having a hard time.  His young wife has run off with a Cossack leaving him with three little children. It seems only a matter of time before he is sent to some position back in Siberia.

It’s 730 steps from my desk to the subway platform where I like to stand. I’ve counted it. Taking a windowless stairway down nine stories, I push through the fire-door to outside.  The streetlights glow with the snow coming down.  Commuters rush by every which way, bundled from the cold, focused on nothing other than to get home.  I navigate my way through drunks and bums.  The stairs are wet and slippery as I go down to the platform. The train ride home is packed and mostly quiet. At the distant end of the car I can hear some serfs strumming a balalaika and siging folk music.

After a long walk along snow covered streets, I finally reach home. The only question is whether I should shovel the inch of snow on the driveway. Or have the peasant women sweep it clean for a few kopeks.

copyright 2015 Magnus Incognito

2014.

It was the best of years. It was the worst of years. It was a dark and stormy year. It was a year that, I found myself lost in dark wood, unsure of which way to go. It was a year I struggled to write anything vaguely original.  It was a year with whimpers, and bangs. Drought and rain. Smoke and flame. Pleasure and pain. Loss and gain. Oats and grain. England vs. Spain.

It was a year with no name! (Except in China, it was the year of the horse.)

It was a year I would have given my kingdom for a horse, now that I think of it.

A year I kind of brushed up on Shakespeare. And Dante. And Dickens.

It was a year I’m happy to appreciate the meaning of all’s well that ends well.

And a year that ends with hope for the next,  because of the love that moves the sun and stars.

Happy New Year!

copyright 2014 Magnus Incognito

It is Christmas Eve.  Tomorrow I’ll go and celebrate Christmas with my family but tonight, I am home alone with my two cats. They have both passed out. I thought they were going to stay up and see Santa. I know I’m not going to stay up late enough to greet old St.Nick.

But Christmas is indeed here again, and the world suffers with war, disease, hatred and violence. I like to pause and reflect in the still, quiet of our Christmas Eve house …

 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,