Snow-free commute a home-office bonus
Some of us are closing in on a full year of working from home, banished from our offices and forced to share what little workplace gossip we hear with the only other living creatures within earshot.
And they are lousy listeners. The dog would pretend to care but is snoring, and the cats do not appreciate any interruptions while chattering at the birds in a murderous rage.
In my ongoing bid to Stay! Positive! during this limbo, I continue to compile a list of pros during an era that has had more cons than a career grifter.
Previously I’ve noted the money I’ve saved on gas, but earlier this week an even bigger automotive pro took shape in my mind, now that we’ve had a few more-than-a-nuisance snowfalls. No more snowy commutes.
You remember how that used to go. First came the pre-dawn agita, triggered by a heartbreaking glance out the window. You turned on the news. Your worst fears were confirmed by television reporters wielding rulers and traffic cameras providing blurred images of what may as well have been lemmings marching toward the nearest cliff.
Next up was the automobile excavation using brush and shovel. This process was guaranteed to include at least one teeth-rattling abrupt stop that only misaligned sidewalk slabs can provide.
By the time you plopped yourself into the driver’s seat you were drenched in sweat and ready to call it a day.
Then there was the 40-minute queue from your house to the nearest freeway ramp, much of it spent cursing silently behind the driver who was certain that the only way to drive in snow was to floor it. You sat stranded, rubbing your temples while Mario Andretti spun his wheels in the furious hope that friction alone would usher in an early spring and allow him to proceed.
Onto the interstate you ventured, joining hundreds of motorists as they cast about for lane markings among
the growing moguls. Everyone drove at a crawl, like first-time skiers wobbling down the bunny hill at Mad River Mountain on Presidents Day.
The roadside ditches were lined with the vehicles of the lead-footed and the unlucky, their bumpers askew and hazard lights blinking out a hopeless SOS.
I remember one commute that clocked in at just under three hours. I’m no mathematician, but I think that means I was traveling at -32 mph. Felt like it, anyway. You know a 14-mile commute has gone south when you’re forced to take a bathroom break.
And don’t forget the hunt for a suitable parking space, which inevitably ended in surrender when you beached yourself on a curbside snow pile and walked the last half-mile to the office through ankle-deep slush.
But now?
Oh, the freedom! To have a second cup of coffee, to start a fire in the fireplace, to settle in to watch “Little House on the Prairie” at 7 a.m.!
You might have to play the good partner or spouse, of course, and pull on boots and jacket and stomp nobly into the drifts with shovel in hand.
It is good form to clear off their car, shovel a path to their car door and neatly clear the way from driveway to street. It is also good form to wish them luck and watch them creep down the street,
and to wait until they are out of sight before cackling and shouting, “So long, sucker!”
Even a dead battery in your teenage son’s car cannot mute the joy that has blossomed in your chest at times like these. For there is no rush to get his car started, not really, and as you watch him round the corner you might even throw all decorum to the wind and cry out, “So long, Sucker Jr.!”
There will be the phone call when the spouse arrives at work, and you will listen dutifully to the rant about missing snowplows, frozen windshield wipers and fish-tailing tractor-trailers. You made these very same calls once, too,
you remind yourself.
The call is not yet concluded, but already your mind has drifted to a more peaceful place, where you watch darkeyed juncos belly-flop into the snow beneath your bird feeders.
Cancel your appointments! Pull those slippers back on! Even the dog won’t demand a walk in this weather.
Nothing will force you behind the wheel of your car today, you think, until your daughter utters a sentence that sends a deep shiver to your very core. “Don’t forget I have dance at 4:45.” tdecker@dispatch.com @Theodore_decker
What is Valentine’s Day if you can’t share it with someone special?
The Columbus Symphony wasn’t about to try.
For its love song-filled concert Saturday in the Palace Theatre, the symphony will admit 300 socially distanced, face-mask-wearing attendees — marking the first time that Principal Pops Conductor Stuart Chafetz will lead the group before a live audience since the start of the pandemic.
“I didn’t realize, until it was gone, how much of what I do is playing off the audience and their reaction,” said Chafetz, who conducted the symphony’s “Holiday Spectacular” program, which was recorded without an audience for broadcast on WBNS-TV (Channel 10) in December.
“It’s amazing when that’s gone and there’s no reaction,” Chafetz said.
Saturday’s intermission-free concert,
“An Evening of Romance,” is sure to inspire some positive audience feedback: Leading a reduced, distanced ensemble of 22 symphony musicians, Chafetz will lead a selection of popular and classical music appropriate for Val
entine’s Day weekend.
“I think people have their own history with this music,” Chafetz said. “It’s going to make their hearts warm and full.”
Joined by vocalists Scott Coulter and Jessica Hendy, both with significant stage experience in New York, the symphony will perform “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” “River Deep — Mountain High” and a trio of tunes by Elton John: “Your Song,” “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and “Circle of Life.”
Guest pianist John Boswell will be on hand to add texture to the symphony and vocalists.
The tango “Por una Cabeza,” memorably heard in the 1992 Al Pacino movie “Scent of a Woman,” might inspire a few cinematic sense memories.
“You remember that scene of them dancing to this wonderful tune,” Chafetz said. “There’s just something very sensual and romantic about a tango.”
And while conducting Marvin Hamlisch’s “Nobody Does It Better” — used in the 1977 James Bond movie “The Spy Who Loved Me” — Chafetz might have his own flashback to working with the noted composer when both were at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
“I can picture Marvin playing piano, playing the opening lick to that,” Chafetz said.
Classical connoisseurs won’t be left out in the cold: “Nessun dorma,” from the opera “Turandot,” and “Salut d’amour” by Edward Elgar are also on tap.
All of the music, Chafetz said, will be coated by the “velvet sheen” that only a symphony can offer.
“Which adds to that special moment,” he said, “especially when you’re cuddling up, socially distanced, to somebody you love.”
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