I don’t know about you guys, but for me 2017 has picked up right where 2016 left off – shitty. After a rather cold and snowy start, things warmed up for my first day back at work last Tuesday. Theoretically, that would be nice. But what it actually involved was trudging to (and waiting at) the bus stop in 36 degree pouring rain. To say it was miserable wouldn’t be doing justice to the level of suckitude. Never fear, of course, because then things got really fucking cold and snowy – so it was back to plowing the driveway a couple times a day and freezing nearly to death waiting for the bus.

Yesterday it got slightly warmer, though still in the mid 20s, which gave us the opportunity to experience about 12 hours of freezing rain driven by 40-50 mph winds – which started up a couple of hours before I left work. I managed to walk from work to the bus stop without falling on my ass (years of putting up with this shit has me pretty well versed in the intricacies of doing the icy-sidewalk shuffle, but a few particularly nasty blasts of wind nearly took me down nevertheless)

Needless to say, the bus was late (I mean, it’s late when the weather’s nice, so an ice storm isn’t exactly gonna speed the process up) and by the time it showed up I’d spent about half an hour out in the elements. That doesn’t sound so bad, I guess, but by the time I got on the bus I was a shiny ball of ice. Well, maybe not a ball – I’m not shaped quite as spherically as I was a few months ago, though I would have welcomed the extra padding last night – more like an iceberg, I guess.

Whatever it was, between the sleet and freezing rain and the 50 mph winds, I didn’t thaw out the whole trip back to where I parked my car. The car, of course, was covered in roughly half to three-quarters of an inch of ice, which I of course had to scrape off before I could go anywhere. When I finally got home (to find that the snowplow had creamed my relatively new mailbox), my hands and feet were pure-white blocks of numb ice.

I’ve really had it with this winter – and we haven’t even officially sworn in President He-who-must-not-be-named yet. To paraphrase Lloyd Bridges, looks like I picked a really bad year to stop drinking beer.

On the bright side, it’s supposed to be in the 40s today and 54° tomorrow (with 100% chance of rain because god obviously hates us).

This morning, though, while they managed to get the streets pretty well plowed and salted, my driveway (and lawn, and trees, and…) was like a skating rink. And then stepping off the bus, I was greeted by a plethora of cops all over the place – in particular State Troopers. I couldn’t figure out why, ’til I realized our esteemed governor is speechifying at the county civic center this morning. It’s apparently the penultimate act of his “state of the state” tour – which ends with a 2:00 PM performance in Albany.

Apparently he wants us to get behind his new agendas that I don’t really recall him being much of a champion of in the past. Like free college (not to be a selfish prick, but I’m not planning to go back to school and I don’t have kids nearing college age, so I find it hard to give a shit about free tuition. Sorry. Maybe if people didn’t hate state workers and public school teachers or cared about other people when it comes to their healthcare, and ability to retire, I could work up some empathy for their goddamn kids – who I already subsidize with my property taxes and by them getting income tax deductions).

Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Of course, if he wants to propose a heated bus shelter on every corner, I’m willing to listen.

Speculation is this is the unofficial kickoff of his 2020 presidential campaign (oh boy).

Speaking of kickoff, our former sleazeball US Senator Al D’Amato got kicked off a Jet Blue flight from Ft. Lauderdale to NY yesterday for being a drunk loudmouth asshole. Either that, or for standing up for the little people whose rights were being trampled (because they were asked to switch seats in order to balance out the load on the plane so it, you know, would fly right). There’s even video, which is rather amusing because it’s one of those “who’s with me gang!?!” moments that ends, predictably, with nobody being with him.

For those of you who don’t know, Al was almost single-handedly responsible for giving us NYers Gov. George Pataki, god bless him.

It would be nice if a former US Senator could show a little common sense and civility since, as you are no doubt aware, this is the same airport where Esteban Santiago opened fire last week, killing five people and injuring a bunch more. As fellow passenger Jeffrey A. Wurst put it, “What I find disappointing in the situation is that we were one terminal away from where a tragedy erupted on Friday.”

As Peggy Bundy used to say, “oh, Al!”