The death of Stewie

Life is so transient, is it not? Here is Stewie, one of the snowmen I created on Monday. Look at him in the first flush of youth at the beginning of the week, all smiles with a future as pure and white as Arctic landscape ahead of him. Just a couple of days later he is slumped into decrepitude, and there he is today, an ex-snowman.

It was a heart rending sight to come home from a weekend away to see all that remains of Stewie was his leek nose (I had had no carrots), his Ireland scarf and a blob of snow. Though Stewie's life was brief it flashed across the firmament, touching so many of us. It was but a week, but what a week, what a week.

I had a quick memorial service over Stewie's remains with Brutus' words on Cassius inevitably coming to mind: 'I owe more tears to this dead man than you shall see me pay.' Then I scooped the remaining snow into a pitcher and with the help of my liquor cabinet turned Stewie-that-was into a strawberry margarita. It was what he would've wanted.