Another Week: Number 107

I wore Amy‘s Chicago Bears shirt on Sunday.

Some Bears fans maintain there are only two games each season that really matter — the ones against the Green Bay Packers. The Bears came within an inch of winning both this year on walk-off field goals, but pulling off the second one at Lambeau Field was a very sweet finish to a nightmare season.

On Monday, we had this winter’s second shovel-worthy snow, a lake-effect spurt that dumped four-plus inches on a narrow stroke of Racine County, while other towns got nothing.

There’s a feeling I always get after tossing snow around for an hour. It’s like my airways open up more than usual and there’s an added sense of calm or mild bliss for the rest of the day — maybe even an ambition to go back outside at dawn and scale whatever mountain is nearby (that would be Mount Pleasant, named for its majestic Kestral Hawk Landfill).

Walking produces a similar effect.

Over the past year, I have driven to Petrifying Springs or the Kenosha lakefront a lot to walk the scenery — and recently, I read an article recommending “awe walks” as therapy against body pain and anxiety about the end of life.

Scientists are finding you can walk off all sorts of bullshit.

But once you add snow, even the walking routes in my own neighborhood become exhilarating. There’s a beauty to it, sure — but mostly it’s all the focus required in navigating the various levels of snow removal on each property you pass. One moment there’s a narrow, icy path apparently cleared with a spatula, the next you’re calf-deep in bus slush. Navigating it all — to music — can be quite a workout.

I walked 6.66 miles this week.

Los Angeles wildfires

My news diet since November has cut way back on Trump. Instead of many hours of MSNBC, there’s one hour of Hallie Jackson NOW from 4 to 5 p.m. Central. I think it’s the best hour of news on TV — a sharp roundup of everything from world events to pop culture.

On Tuesday, Jackson’s usual checklist was preempted by coverage of Jimmy Carter’s casket entering the Capitol rotunda. Then, at 4:30, she cut away from that ceremony with breaking news from the other side of the nation: Los Angeles was on fire.

One of the amazing benefits of our TV streaming age is the ability to watch news from channels all over the world, so I spent the evening — and the next several days — tuned into KNBC 4 Los Angeles via Roku.

I have only been to Los Angeles to change planes at LAX, but the city is so thoroughly depicted in movies and TV that it’s as if we all grew up there. Suddenly, it is all a heartbreaking hellscape.

The coverage by KNBC was surprisingly excellent. Anchors, field reporters, helicopter reporters, meteorologists, maps, and graphics have been informative and insightful hour after hour while describing what has to be a crushing horror for all of them.

As just one example, while the flames climbed toward the Mount Wilson Observatory, veteran political reporter Conan Nolan ad-libbed an encyclopedic backgrounder on the landmark and its history with fires. I had not heard of Nolan before this and now I regard him as a legend.