The Groke

Much of our bedtime reading this winter has come from Tove Jansson's wonderful Moomin books. Jansson was a Swede who grew up in Finland, a distinction imperceptible to most of the world that I seem to be stuck on. Her books are a relatively mild phenomenon here in the U.S., but are popular enough in Japan to have landfills worth of discardable toys molded in their tribute. The stories are full of unexpected niceties, and the Moomins, the family at the center of all the inaction, are the kind of folks you wouldn't mind being cooped up with all winter. Mostly because they hibernate.

One of Jansson's least animated characters is the Groke, a shiftless energy sucker who tries to sit on the others to get warm. Parasitis borealis. But despite her efforts, the Groke is doomed to wander forever cold. The Groke has glommed on to our first peek of spring here in Minneapolis, and is currently parking her clammy ass on the crocus shoots in our front yard. A buzz kill? Not really--we did a bunch of gardening before the weather turned--cold-sowing lettuce and spinach--and this snowpack will turn bright green in a few weeks.

Despite twenty inches of snow last week, the powers-that-be declared that life should go on as usual. Some lesser powers dissented: the highway patrol advised against travel. But the schools and the state wanted butts in seats, greasy roads notwithstanding. I stayed home and moved snow, confident my employer would not reimburse damaged taillights and fenders. We hosted a high school student for about an hour after her bus failed to show up for its appointed two-hour delay as the wind flung two-to-three inches of snow an hour at our neighborhood. Finally, alas, the beancounters have seized our collective common sense. And that shiver you can't shake is the Groke trying to sneak a hug.

Today I took the bus to work, the first time that's been necessary since a tailgater totaled our second car in January. I put my transfer in the wrong slot on the University Limited, and was scolded, but the driver thawed a little and didn’t make me pay again. A gritty day with plenty of sallow commuters mounting the dirty snowbanks, and one special-needs pedestrian (or a guy coming off a serious night of partying) in someone else’s clothes, blue jeans a few sizes too small, another's buttock wear highlighting the backs of his thighs above highwater hems and tumbledown socks. The calendar tells us that spring sprang this week, that vital moment when the sun crosses the equator as the earth bows north to the light. But the streets of Minneapolis are pre-vernal today.

© 2006 Michael Nordskog