
Must be December.
God left Her leaf blower on high all day yesterday and the trees got stripped faster than an Escalade with Texas tags parked overnight at a Duck! City Motel 6. Now they look like backgrounds from “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” which was just selected for the National Film Registry.

Overnight the rain swept in, nearly a quarter inch of it, followed by the fabled “wintry mix” and then actual snow this very dark morning. Sort of a heavenly apology to the trees for pulling their bloomers down, I suppose.
In her office Herself is sipping some vile tea that recalls the scented-candle section at a Nordstrom, staffed by a retired exotic dancer who applies her eau de parfum using a power washer.
But she can drink whisky neat for breakfast if that blows her dress up, because she makes all the money around here. Herself, not the stripper. Though a stripper would too. Don’t ask how I know.
The private sector — Herself’s little corner of it, anyway — pays a damn sight better than anything I’ve got going on, especially if we’re talking about stripping. If we had to depend on the spare change Uncle Sammy drops in my tin cup or the singles drunk bachelorettes stuffed in my G-string we’d be fighting the cat for her kibble, and not just for fun, either.
Meanwhile, it’s 9:30 in the morning, but outside it looks like 9:30 at night, and if I had the sense God gave a stripper I’d start taking off clothes and … go back to bed.
