Chicken gods

6AM on the 9th day of being snowbound: I bless my IPod, Skype and my cell phone for keeping me in touch with the world all these days. I have cleaned cupboards, watched DVD's, worked at my desk, conducted business for my job, improvised ways to exercise. I've eaten well because the gods took me to Costco to stock up on frozen chicken, shrimp and salmon just before the storm hit. I do take personal credit for buying toilet paper in bulk.

My most frequent non-electric entertainment is watching the maneuvers of my co-condo dwellers navigate the steep ice and snow encrusted road to our buildings that has a curve thrown in at just the wrong spot for bad measure. No matter the intensity of my heavenly beseeching, I will not suddenly become 15 years younger and get out there and take a shovel to the snow on the road so I can get out of here. I wait.

I just think the gods must be crazy for sending about a foot of snow to us living here in this marine/mountain climate. What possible purpose could they have in tethering us this way?

Shalom Auslander on This American Life just gave me a huge hoot on Day Nine in describing Chicken, the god beyond understanding. He describes an out of body experience where a guy floats to see -----------Chicken, who is gee oh dee. Gasp! But when he gets back in his body, he doesn't have the heart to tell his loving, grateful to god family that they are grateful to a Chicken.

Isn't that great!? What if all those people who won't talk about their out of body experiences share that guy's reluctance to share and spoil it all?! Well......Over and over we try to figure out what the heck the purpose of all this is, and some of the ideas are terrific! This one's just perfect to tease out a smile and warm the heart of a snowbound chicken. Wait. does that mean I'm............?? Back to waiting....