The Snow is Snittering Full Snart

This is me writing to get my mind off the intolerable pain of drawing breath. (Either that, or this is true dedication, and someone ought to nominate me for one of those Pulitzer things. They could make a new category, like they did for Art Spiegelman. Biggest Internet Loudmouth, or something.)

1. "The snow is snittering full snart."

He used to say this all the time. We'd be sitting in some snowdusted car park somewhere, waiting for Mother to come out of the grocery shop. There'd be a wavery trickle of classical music on the radio, the signal hopelessly weakened by the weather. The tune'd go in and out of the snow in a forlorn sort of way. It reminded me of myself, getting lost on the way home from school. I got lost all the time when I was wee. It was a special talent of mine.

Anyhow, as I was saying, there we'd be, watching snow covering up the bushes, and he'd say it. No--no, he'd puff himself up a bit first, then sigh and change his mind. A soloist on the radio would embark upon a momentous cadenza, which would be carried away on a burst of static. Then, in the midst of all that silence, my father would puff himself up again, and this time he'd say it: "The snow is snittering full snart."

"Hee, hee, hee," I'd say, because it was funny.

"Where's your mother got to?" he'd say, and we'd go back to watching the snow.

2. The Vienna Philharmonic's Harpist

"They've apparently got to start auditioning women now, did you know?" We were driving home from our Saturday-afternoon music lesson, and listening to a concert put on by the Vienna Philharmonic. It was winter, but it wasn't snowing that day (not even half-snart).

"Really?" I was surprised.

"Yes, yes. All this equality of the sexes, and so forth."

"Ha. You know what'll happen, of course. They'll just hire one, to show they're making an effort. Probably a--

"--harpist," we finished together.

3. "You're an Aardvark."

This, he used to say to me when I was maybe three or four years old. I have only a few non-school-related memories from that time, all vague and hazy things: riding my tricycle on a street with a lot of cracks, slipping on a frozen pond and slicing my nose, stealing daisies from the neighbours' field, Grandma coming over with packets of Refreshers hidden in her sleeves--all that sort of nonsense. Oh, and my father calling me an aardvark. He did that all the time, too, probably even more than he commented on the snow. After all, it only snows a few months out of the year, but I resemble an aardvark every day. (Ordinarily, I'd stick in a picture of me and a picture of an aardvark at this point--for comparative purposes, sort of thing--but I can't be arsed.)

4. "...and then the statue arrives for dinner, and says..."

The statue comes from the same general time period as the aardvark, I think. Having run out of Noggin the Nog yarns to tell me at bedtime, my father was recounting, instead, the story of Don Giovanni. (How one explains Don Giovanni to a four-year-old, I can't imagine, but he had me quite transfixed. My eyes, I imagine, looked a lot like saucers, especially when he got to the bit with the statue.)

"And then the statue arrives for dinner, and says--" (he paused for effect, then started singing in a surprisingly deep and menacing voice) "Don Giovanni, a cenar teco m'invitasti, e son venuto."

"Blimey! What's that mean?"

"Don't say 'blimey'. Say 'good grief'."

"Good grief."

"It means 'Don Giovanni, you invited me to dinner, and I've come.'"

"Do they eat dinner, then?"

"No. The statue drags Don Giovanni off to hell."

"You said the aitch word."

"One can say it if one is talking about the abyss. Just don't use it as a curse."

I became obsessed with two things after that conversation: Don Giovanni, and talking about the abyss as often as possible. The idea of a free pass for the aitch word was too good to pass up, in those days. Ah, if my poor father could hear me now! Perhaps I ought to cut down on the c-, d-, f-, and sh- words this year.

(Eff that ess, ya silly cee. Dee'd if I'm cutting out half my vocabulary for anyone! Ess-eeeeeee-yit."

My father said other funny things, too, but my strength is fading. Sitting up seems too arduous--I'll list them some other time.