My Sunday Feeling

Arkansas got socked with a pretty good snow/ice storm last Friday. I have been batching it the last week and will continue to do so for the next 2. There are entirely benign reasons for this recent turn of events mainly owing to kid and adult scheduling conflicts and not because of "tales of drunkenness and cruelty" to employ the immortal phrase of Ray Davies.



So I have been socked in here at the Hillcrest Sports Bar. I kind of like snow days. As long as the power and the Internet stays up, I can find any of a number of ways to pass the time. I had planned earlier to go through Mother's papers and continue the process of throwing out any documents that are past the IRS "lookback" period. But I'm certain the recycle station is closed today. I was also going to clean out my closets and take stuff to the Goodwill. But I ain't driving out to West Little Rock until the ice is completely melted. So that's out.



An interesting aside: Last week, I found a bunch of old checks in the first box of crap I went through. I set them aside for shredding. Then it hit me. The accounts are closed. The account holder now longer exists. What's the point?



It is damned difficult to defraud a potential victim who no longer walks among us. So it was off to the recycle station along with 4 armfuls of other completely useless and irrelevant documents that neurosis compelled my poor mother to keep.



I had planned to do a few other things around here but NV's take on snow days, one that she explained to me when my phone call woke her ass up at 9 Friday morning, was that snow days are "unexpected days of rest." Which the Queen of goddamn Sheba and I now refer to by the acronym UDOR.



I didn't completely goof off during my UDOR. I did laundry. I did dishes. I read as much of Julian Barnes' alternately moving, funny and depressing rumination on death entitled "Nothing To Be Frightened Of'" as I could stand at one pop. I did more thank you notes while I watched golf. I sent and received text messages to and from all over. E-mails and Facebook posts. Fixed a martini. Talked to my Uncle up in Quitman. His power was out. This after he cut down all the trees in the front yard after Aunt Ginger died so that limbs wouldn't knock down power lines like it always does. So much for planning. Fixed another martini. Read Sports Illustrated, ate leftover chili and fell asleep @ 9;30 or so. Not a bad way to kill a UDOR.



My buddy Don and I read the Chapel Hill News Observer's story about the latest wrinkle in the opera of insanely bad judgment that is the John Edwards affair. Ah! The Internet! Seems that a local interior decorator over there was the conduit through which @ $700,000 was funnelled from a member of the zillionaire Mellon family to Rielle Hunter, uberloon and babymama to John Edwards' kid.



Rumor has it that the local US Attorney is looking to see whether campaign contributions were funnelled to Hunter. I'm also willing to bet that the IRS is looking to see if there's a tax evasion case here as well as charges of structuring transactions to avoid the reporting requirements. I mean, you just can't take that much money and conduit it out to your girlfriend without somebody having to report it as income. If you will recall, that's how they got Barry Bonds' chick on the side to roll over on him. He bought her a house. She didn't declare it. Bingo! Tax evasion charge!



And if all of this wasn't lurid enough, Hunter has sued Edwards' former campaign aide who wrote a book in which he described both John and Elizabeth as nickle-plated phonies. He now claims he has found a tape in which Edwards is allegedly depicted as having sex with a pregnant woman who looks suspiciously like the Plaintiff. The suit alleges-get this-invasion of privacy and she got a TRO last Thursday Ordering that the tapes be turned over.



Edwards will undoubtedly be deposed. Hide the guns.

And the question will also undoubtedly come up as to how a New Age maker of mostly unseen documentaries can prove up damages while being the kept ex-girlfriend of John Edwards. What's she gonna say? She gave up a shot for the prize at Cannes to be with him?



And you think YOU had a bad month.



Meanwhile back on Planet Hillcrest, traffic seems to be moving out on Van Buren although it still seems icy. NV and the kids are going to meet me for dinner tonight most likely at some pizza place up the hill. I may walk although the last time I took a hike in the snow was @ 5 years ago. One of my numerous exes lived around the corner in those days and I was walking over for dinner when I slipped and landed flat on my back bruising the ribs beneath my shoulder blades. The damn things still hurt when it's cold.



Maybe I'll drive after all.



We are fortunate, or I think that we are, that we only have to endure ice and snow maybe a couple of times a year. I don't think that I would much like getting what the Midwest has gotten lately on a regular basis. So I can live with the occasional storm around here.



After all, everybody could use a UDOR every now and again.