It's starting to mean it out there...

It's that diamond-dusty snow that mounts up, and the wind is piercing.  There's no one out frolicking with snowmen as they were on Saturday, just a little gang of Hotspurs risking their fool necks on tea trays down the library steps.  I just saw a brave soul go by on skis, clad either in nothing but shorts and a bobble hat, or in the thinnest possible pink silk longjohns.

The homeless guy with an atavism for wild weather isn't on his usual bench in his umbrella cave.  I hope he's all right.  (The neighborhood isn't callous:  cops and churches and social services have all looked out for him on snow days, but he's always refused to take shelter when it's offered.)  

Nine