The Ice, Man, Cometh -- and Goeth

The houses on Tipperary Hill are snuggled very close together. (Question to Mark Murphy and other editors: "very closely together"?) I was going to say: "which has its advantages," but then I could not think of any such advantages. There are drawbacks, though, to the proximity of domicile structures each to each (notice I did not use the loathsome redundancy "close proximity"?). In the winter, the icicles hanging from roofs of adjacent buildings pose a threat. Well, they don't pose a threat per se, but the potential of falling icicles poses a threat. A grave threat. I casually observed today that the downhill sides of houses seem to have the larger icicles. (Makes sense. Gravity and all that.) Yes, yes, I know that formations of icicles are indications of improperly heated houses, or so I am told. You do what you can, just to pay the monthly National Grid bill. About 30 years ago in downtown Syracuse someone died from a falling icicle. Ironically enough, it was a huge icicle that fell from a cathedral during the installation of a new bishop. A neighbor of mine at the time, a recently deceased former arson investigator, used to say an icicle is the perfect weapon: no fingerprints, no weapon, once it melts. Which brings me to my point: it is possible, hypothetically speaking, that one year a huge icicle just may have plunged from one house and crashed into the house of a nearby neighbor, cascading right through the tenant's dining room window, through the blinds and all. Theoretically speaking, that is. I mean, how is one supposed to control one's icicles, anyway, metaphorically speaking? No injuries reported or alleged.