I took a walk to get basics, praying that on this snowbound day before Thanksgiving the multitudes would leave me bagels. (They did, and I can love them for this as the Pilgrims would.) On the way I saw a man on a bicycle smiling on sheet ice. He shouted as he pedaled past, “This is the best kind of weather!” Next up a white dog, looking fine and pretty and knowing white on white works. I felt like I was looking at the new York Times fashion issue and it hurt. I had miss-matched mittens and one hand, the leather driving glove hand, seemed to have gone green with frostbite. I stopped at Sears. Give me the Lands End special, a pedigreed 30 below warm fisted mitten, please.

On the way home I walked by the car where in July a woman leaned against hot blue metal in a floor length fur coat and smoked a cigarette. Today, surrounded by frozen mud and snow and ice,  her car was covered with beachtowels, floral tablecloths from the old country, and lurid afghans in red and orange and green. I noted especially the striped cords binding the afghan to the windshield. There was no snow on the car itself and so perhaps this is some kind of magic, the application of beachtowels thus warding off the chill. There are things I do not understand, and for this I am also thankful, even a day earlier than necessary.