Two days earlier what meteorologists refer to as a polar vortex had plunged a long knife of frigid weather down through British Columbia and into the United States, with Bellingham right on its westernmost edge. At the same time, what our weather gal calls a “Pineapple Express” was rolling in off the Pacific, bringing with it drenching rains all up and down the West Coast. The two opposing weather patterns had merged somewhere north of Seattle, resulting in blizzard conditions that had brought our small city to a complete standstill.
Mel’s and my house on Bayside Road in the city’s Fairhaven neighborhood sits on a bluff overlooking Bellingham Bay. Because we’re so close to the water, we’re usually in a banana-belt situation as far as snow is concerned—usually, but not this time around. If it hadn’t been for the all-wheel drive on Mel’s Interceptor, she wouldn’t have been able to make it up and down our driveway. My S-Class Mercedes is an older model 4Matic, but when it comes to driving on snow and ice, I’m not especially proficient, and as much as possible I try to avoid driving and walking in that kind of weather.
The previous morning, before the snowstorm hit, it had already been icy cold outside. When I sent Sarah out into our frigid backyard to do her thing, I assumed she’d completed the job. That was an error on my part. Sarah evidently likes walking on icy-cold ground as much as I do. A lot later in the day, I learned she had avoided freezing her huge but dainty paws by leaving an Irish-wolfhound-size gift for me under the roofline of the front porch. Rather than walk around the house to the proper receptacle, I had resorted to the lazy man’s shortcut of flushing the by-then-frozen pile of doodoo down the guest-room toilet. Standing in the kitchen the next morning and waiting for the coffee to brew, I should have been smart enough to put two and two together and figure out what had happened with the plumbing, but as I mentioned earlier, I’m no handyman.
After filling Mel’s and my thermal mugs with coffee, I made a pit stop of my own in the powder room without attempting to flush. Then I picked up my iPad and found the number for Roto-Rooter in the home-vendors section of my contacts list. That’s another side issue of owning a home that dates from the middle of a previous century. It’s a good idea to have a talented plumbing guy and an electrician or two on speed dial.
By the time I’d managed to get an ETA on the plumber, Mel was dressed and having her typical on-the-go breakfast, which generally consists of a piece of buttered toast accompanied by a couple slices of pepper-jack cheese.
“What’s on your agenda for the day?” I asked, joining her on an adjacent stool at the kitchen island.
“A working lunch with the mayor at noon,” she replied, “and a city-council meeting this evening, unless they call it off due to weather. The trucks are out plowing and spreading sand, but the streets are impassable again almost as soon as the plows are gone. You probably didn’t hear them,” she added, “but they already did our street and driveway.”
“Rank hath its privileges,” I observed.
She gave me a beaming smile. “It certainly does,” she agreed.
“When’s the cold streak supposed to end?” I asked.
“Tomorrow,” she answered, “but don’t hold your breath. It’s going to warm up tomorrow or the next day, but before that happens, they’re predicting another record snowstorm.”
“Great,” I grumbled. “Alternating layers of snow and ice. Looks like I’ll be settling in for a long winter’s nap.”
Mel gathered her coat, purse, and coffee and then on her way out stopped by where I was sitting.
“As long as you’re stuck at home,” she suggested, giving me a wifely good-bye peck on my cheek, “why don’t you think about putting up the Christmas decorations?”
She said it with a smile and a kiss. It was more of a hint than an order, but once again, just as with the water problem in the bathroom, I knew I needed to pay attention.
Chapter 1
Lars Jenssen, who started out as my AA sponsor and ended up becoming my stepgrandfather after marrying my widowed grandmother, used to tell me, “We get too soon old and too late smart.” I like to think I wised up before it was too late. That’s why, once I finished my morning coffee and my daily roster of crossword puzzles, I got my rear in gear and set about dealing with the Christmas decorations, starting by hauling a dozen or so boxes in from the garage.
Supposedly we have a three-car garage. That’s what the real-estate agent told us. The reality is somewhat different. Once we came to Bellingham and Mel had the use of a company car, she had unloaded the Porsche I’d given her years earlier. So now one of the three bays holds my S-Class Mercedes and one holds Mel’s Police Interceptor, while the third bay is devoted solely to Christmas—Mel’s doing rather than mine.
The Christmas-only space in our garage is a direct result of Mel’s lifelong conflict with her father. She grew up as an army brat and always had a problematic relationship with her dad, who retired as a full-bird colonel. He’s gone now, and I’m more than happy to take her word for it that he wasn’t a pleasant person. For him Christmas was nothing but an annoying afterthought. Naturally Mel begs to differ.
When she divorced her first husband and moved to Seattle to go to work for SHIT, she drove cross-country towing a U-Haul trailer loaded with—you guessed it—her vast collection of Christmas decorations, which for years were stowed in a rented storage unit. After we married, whenever it came time to decorate our condo for Christmas, Mel would go to the storage facility and come traipsing home with a collection of boxes that turned our high-rise condo into a winter wonderland that the grandkids absolutely adored. The whole family loved it, yours truly included, but I couldn’t help but wonder how she did it, because each year the end result seemed to be totally different from the year before. The reality of the situation didn’t come into focus for me until after our move to Bellingham. That’s when she shut down the storage unit and transferred her amazing collection to our garage.
Mel is nothing if not organized. The boxes are loaded onto four heavy-duty rolling shelving units. The three boxes containing the pre-lit tree are pretty much self-explanatory: top, middle, and bottom, with the tree skirt neatly folded in the one labeled “Bottom.” The rest of the otherwise identical moving boxes are labeled on every visible side: “Red Balls,” “Silver Balls,” “White Balls,” “Blue Balls,” “Poinsettias, one Red and one White,” “Holly Sprigs,” “Ribbons,” “Bows,” “Angels,” “Santas,” “Nutcrackers,” “Christmas Linens,” and “Wreaths.” As I surveyed the assortment of boxes, I realized this was like one of those gigantic Lego sets my grandson, Kyle, loves so much. Everything I needed was there—some assembly required.