It's all about perspective, baby

Husband-and-wife journalists Bob Miller and Callie Clark Miller use this space to offer their views on everyday issues.

HE SAID: Old Man Winter has turned my cute and pregnant wife in to Old Woman Miller.

Like an old granny and a Boy Scout, I have to escort Callie everywhere she goes. The Old Woman takes tiny baby steps, shuffling her feet as to not fall and break a hip.

I don't mind the job. It makes me feel important, frankly, that I'm preventing her from a major surgery like hip replacement. My grandmother went through that last year. That was tough.

She just turned 26, my cute and pregnant wife. In fact, we spent her birthday huddled in a house without power. I stopped on my way home from work to pick up two store-bought cakes (a vanilla and a chocolate, because I didn't know which kind she'd like and I wanted to surprise her). I also picked up an order to go. The burger was undercooked, and so was the house.

We tried to tough it out, but we couldn't muster the fortitude. Sometime around 2 a.m. I decided it was time to pack up our pillows and head to my brother's apartment a few blocks away. We woke up a few hours later. I slept most of the night on the floor. She slept on my brother's fold-out bed.

By morning, Callie didn't feel well, and my back was stiff. And I felt as old as she did.

SHE SAID: I walked into our house Wednesday afternoon and broke into a sweat. The thermostat said 60 degrees. We have an old house; I usually keep the thermostat on 74. In fact, when we woke up Tuesday morning after the electricity had been out overnight, it was 60 degrees. I was freezing and not too shy to complain about it. But after the 44 degrees of Tuesday night, 60 felt like Key West to me. Perspective, baby.

Our neighborhood looks like an icy tornado ripped through. I've covered six tornadoes as a reporter; I'm familiar with the destruction possibilities. And I've witnessed one other ice storm that splintered trees, but nothing like the frozen war zone our backyard has become.

My dad likes to tell the story of the 8 inches (or was it 12?) of snow that was on the ground when I was born 26 years ago. He brings it up every year on my birthday. Also that he and my mom were forced to sell their favorite hunting dog (named Flop) to pay for me. The day after the coon dog said goodbye, my mom tried to talk my dad into getting Flop back.

Apparently his new owner wouldn't take me on a trade. The other day when she was relaying this story to me, my mom made sure to mention -- with a sigh of longing -- that she still misses Flop.

So we spent most of my birthday evening in a house that was quickly descending into tundra temperatures. I didn't get my traditional birthday breakfast (turns out you need electricity to operate a waffle iron). The windshield in my sport utility vehicle cracked under the ice. We had to cancel our long-planned wedding anniversary trip to a B&B because of more icy weather moving in this weekend. And to top it all off, we received a notice saying our federal tax return had been rejected by the IRS due to a typing mistake. But when I came in Wednesday afternoon and discovered the lights worked in our house, I thought I'd received the best birthday gift ever.

Perspective, baby.

Bob Miller is the Southeast Missourian managing editor. After an unsuccessful attempt at making toast with a candle, Callie Clark Miller still wants her traditional birthday waffle. Reach them at bmiller@semissourian.com and cmiller@semissourian.com.