Thankful for small blessings

When I woke up yesterday morning, the sun was shining.

Sure, it was only about 20 degrees, but what with the sunshine and everything, I thought that we might actually get a swell melting day in there. Out my kitchen window, I could almost see the snow mounds receding before my very eyes. Ding-dong, we might be on our way to the snow witch of 2015 being dead. I’m melting….

With an afternoon appointment downtown, I began looking around for my sunglasses. (Anyone who lives in snow country can appreciate that sunglasses are more essential in winter than in summer. When the sun starts glaring off that snow…)

At some point in my hunt for the red Vera Bradley glass case that contain those sunglasses, I noticed that it was – yet again – snowing out.

Only those big, fat, “classic” flakes that don’t tend to amount to very much. But still, more snow that we just plain don’t need.

But there are small blessings, and one was that, on Tuesday afternoon or evening, when I was away, the City came and removed the big old snow mound at the corner, which means that, until our next major storm (predicted for this weekend), I won’t need to do much to maintain the curb cut and clear the storm drain. Just an occasional slush-kick, and a poke and a prod at the gunk stuck in the drain grate, and things will stay free running and clear.

Thankful for that small blessing, and for the mixed blessing of no longer having to search out those sunglasses, I started grazing around the business news sites to see if I could find some matter for today’s post.

Which is how I came across the article on Bloomberg about the February 17th Rolls-Royce announcement that they’re now getting into the SUV business:

Today, Rolls-Royce sent white-gloved chauffeurs in Phantoms around New York City to deliver letters announcing plans to build a sport utility vehicle (SUV), making good on hints dropped by Chief Executive Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes earlier this year.

(Source: Bloomberg)

I guess because I am not in New York City, I did not receive a missive from a white-gloved chauffeur.

The news, nonetheless, managed to reach these far shores.

Ah, the Rolls-Royce SUV.

You can have your Cadillac Escalade. Your Porsche Cayenne. Your Mercedes whatever-they-call-it.

The Rolls-Royce SUV is precisely what I’ve been holding out for since I donated my beat-up Beetle to Volunteers of America back in ought-seven.

Well, they’re not calling it an SUV. They’re calling it an “Everywhere Vehicle.” It even comes with its own hashtag: #EffortlessEverywhere.

Oooh. Ahhhh. An everywhere vehicle, that is capable of crossing “any terrain.”

Go for it!

I plan on taking mine up the face of El Capitan, a feat I would never be able to accomplish with ropes and carabiners.

I’m also thinking of taking it through some of the dunes on the Cape – Cahoon Hollow, or Snail Trail in P-town. Sure, I can navigate those on foot, but how much easier on the legs to do so in the comfy quarters of a Rolls-Royce everywhere vehicle. Of course, I’d have to do during the dead of night, so that no one could see me destroying the dunes, the rare flora, or the fauna (as in nesting piping plovers).

And, of course, an everywhere vehicle would come in plenty handy during snow-pocalypse winters.

Say, I could even get a plow for the front end and help keep the roads clear. And shove those nasty street-corner mounds the hell out of the way.

I was not one of the “‘discerning customers’ [who had] urged them to do so,” but that won’t curb my enthusiasm for the vehicle of my dreams.

No time line yet for the RR-EV, but that just means that I have time to capture a mega Powerball Jackpot, since I was cruelly deprived of the half-billion dollar bingo last week.

Anyway, once you start looking for small blessings, they are there a-plenty.

My sister Trish sent me this from BuzzFeed, showing snow accumulations in Eastern Canada. (Cancel my plans to emigrate, thanks.)

And, while I was trooping around business news sites, looking for something to write about, I was slapped in the face with a pop-up ad for the Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University. Given that this is Jack Welch, you will not be surprised to learn that the pop-up ad featured the visage of Jack Welch.

As a graduate of the Alfred P. Sloan School of Management at MIT, I am well aware of business school benefactors.

And yet I was able to make it through two years there without ever having the visage of Alfred P. Sloan pop up in my face. (As he was long-dead, it would not have been possible for Alfred P. to pop up in a class.)

I’m sure there was a portrait on the wall somewhere, but not once that I can recall was it mentioned – yet alone over and over and over – that Alfred P. Sloan was a frickin’ genius.

Anyway, since Donald Trump seems to be out of the education business, what with his Trump Entrepreneurship Institute being kaput, I will make a note that the Jack Welch Management Institute might make a good blog topic.

As I said, I’m thankful for small blessings.