nor'easter bomb?

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Snow squall blowing into Knoxville

"The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up—flaked up, with rose-water snow...But all the witcheries of that unwaning weather did not merely lend new spells and potencies to the outward world. Inward they turned upon the soul, especially when the still mild hours of eve came on; then, memory shot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights. And all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab's texture." 

- From Moby Dick by Herman Melville

What again? Didn't spring arrive last week to much fanfare? Snow squalls passed through this afternoon, temps dropping to the low 20s tonight and a "nor'easter bomb" is predicted to hit the Northeast coast including Nantucket where Ismael and Queequeg set sail in the Pequod. 

Nor'easter bomb? 

We live in the Golden Age of Hyperbole or, at least, of robust monikers; the age of extreme sports like cliff jumping, ice climbing and bodyboarding. There's Old Spice Lionpride and Wolfthorn. The hockey team in Denver is the Avalanche. Dairy Queen has a Blizzard. Miami has the Hurricanes. There's energy drinks called Red Bull, Mad Dog, Monster Mean Bean and Black Mamba Venom and my Cracker Jacks are now Cracker Jack'd Buffalo Ranch. We're obsessed like Ahab with extreme nature. We put it in a can, splash it on our bodies.

Mamba venom? Smell like Lions? Drink a blizzard? Best not mess with nature or you get wrathful weather. While much to the chagrin of Captain Ahab, and much chagrined Old Testament Ahab—better not cross him or he'll kick you with his jawbone leg—that's why he chased his great white obsession, the original extreme sport. 

As for me? We can't seem to escape winter, it's cold in here and my feet hurt. More and more they all wrought my texture, but it probably needed wroughting.

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