Tuesday, December 3, 2019

DecemBRRRR.

Who are all you freaks dreaming about White Christmases out there? KNOCK IT OFF!

I'm writing this at lunchtime Monday, and last night we had a lot of freezing rain as well as snow and a little hail. This morning was a treacherous mess.



We were actually lucky to get a little snow, because it was the crunchy kind that was good for walking. The ice beneath it is a stone-cold killer, a menace to drivers and to pedestrians with two legs or fewer, and I've had enough concussions for one year and am not looking to add to the total.

We may get a foot of snow by the time it ends in the wee hours on Tuesday. It should be over by four a.m., so there will be at least a school delay, possibly another cancellation.

It wouldn't matter so much if we didn't have a still-not-healthy dog -- Nipper keeps improving but he isn't normal. He did play in the yard with his normal vim and verve this morning, so I have to count that as a good sign. I am mainly concerned about dehydration at this point. More selfishly, I am concerned about the frozen diarrhea awaiting when this white sky garbage starts to thaw later in the week (high on Wednesday: 38; next week we hit the forties).

Earlier this year I thought I'd do a little photo project for this site -- try to take the same tree picture to see how it changes over time. I actually forgot the November update, but here goes:

August 13, 6:50 a.m.
September 20, 6:41 a.m.
October 15, 6:52 a.m.
December 2, 6:48 a.m.


One of these things is not like the other...

Ugh. Any wonder I'm so depressed today?

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TUESDAY MORNING UPDATE: Nipper's still not 100%, but is getting better. The Curse of Frustration is still upon me. I missed the garbage this morning, because I was digging out and trying to get the dogs to do their thing, and I expected the trash men to come a little late and they did not. Now I'm stuck with sick dog's poop and a turkey carcass until Friday.

I know that when things start to go wrong, it's easy to get confirmation bias; start looking for wrong things and you'll find them. But I can't escape the feeling that I have the Creeping Dangerfields upon me.

4 comments:

  1. I'm 44 and live in Michigan. Every year the relentless gray is harder to deal with. Usually I roll my eyes at claims of "Seasonal Depressive Disorder" or whatever they're calling it, but I have to admit that it profoundly affects me now. Its not the cold, or the lack of color, or the snow.. but the damn GRAY. I bought one of those "light therapy lamps" about a week ago; the jury is still out on whether it does anything or whether it's just snake oil, but it's nice to just be able to Do Something about it. My wife and I dream of the day we can snowbird to Florida.

    It doesn't help I lived in Phoenix for seven years, with 330 days of sunshine a year. "It's so hot", they say. Yes, for four months out of the year, but you beat the heat with a pool and a cold brew, not huddled inside looking at the seventeenth day in a row of complete overcast.

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  2. With so many technological wonders at our disposal, we still can not deal with the weather. My hill was slushy with a nice coat of soft snow that was on the verge of melting and refreezing. (Gotta love those low-to-mid-20s temperatures.) But I was careful about how I walked and didn't dwell on the dangers that could befall me. Nature happens, and we have to adapt and live with it. You know the saying, It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. Complaining about the weather is like waving a middle finger at God.

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  3. ...unless you move to nicer weather.

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  4. I treat Seasonal Affective Disorder with seasonal affective whisky, works like a charm. Two fingers of Laphroaig and all's well.

    That, plus my baseball opening day countdown calendar should get me through the winter just fine.

    Hmmm, lets see ... well now, 113 days until the Nat's opener; 120 days until the home opener. I can do that standing on my head.

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