Some sad news here. For quite a while now, the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra (don’t laugh – it’s been quite highly regarded, consistently ranking in the top 50 orchestras nationwide, which is no small feat considering they wear overalls and play in barns and corn fields) has had financial difficulties. Things are tough all over, management has been somewhat questionable, and both attendance and funding have withered (young livestock these days just aren’t as cultured as they used to be, and it’s hard to afford symphony tickets on what Wal-Mart pays).

Last week, the SSO canceled the rest of this season (and said there would be no refunds for the suckerspatrons who had purchased tickets – including rather expensive ones to see Yo-Yo Ma (my, my ma?, no yo ma). Yesterday, they threw in the towel, declared bankruptcy, and decided to shut it down after something like 50 years. I guess we just can’t support a full time, 77-piece (or whatever it is) orchestra up here in the provinces. A sad day, indeed. I guess I’ll just have to settle for chamber music. Nothing quite as scintillating as a string quartet.

Other than that, though, yesterday was a lovely day. I started out for work in driving rain at about 42 degrees. The rain shifted to wet snow about halfway there, and the ground had a nice white coating of snow by the commute home in the evening. On the bright side, the legendary weather-prognosticating, Marcellus Mike (he’s a marmot) came out of his hole just before sunset last night and saw his shadow, meaning either that spring is right around the corner (anywhere from two to six weeks), or that the sun happened to come out very late in the day.

Yes, it’s a little known fact outside these parts that the first Tuesday after the first Monday in April is Marmot Day (which means we’re all feasting on Woodchuck Stew today, as the first Wednesday after the first Tuesday after the first Monday in April is Woodchuck Wednesday; we’re not really sentimental about our marmots and, as I mentioned before, times – unlike roadkill – are tough all over).

And, in fact, the human weather geeks are predicting upper 60s on Sunday (which I’ll believe when I see – they’re kind of like Republicans. They say one thing right there on live teevee one day, and three days later they deny it and say something totally opposite, though at least the weather dudes assign a percentage to the likelihood that they’re full of shit).

So the grass will, overnight, go from brown and dead-looking to 10 inches high and needing to be cut. And me without my mower deck installed on the Kubota (not to mention somebody will have to deal with cutting the grass at our emergency back-up money pit that I’ve been doing my best not to think about). They have still not shipped my bucket forks, which I’m kinda bummed about, ‘cuz I could really use them. Never mind I can’t really afford them (which has me kind of conflicted, because I’m tempted to cancel them before it’s too late and save the money).

Still, it would be nice not to be cold all the time. There’s way too much house to keep warm with just the pellet stove, and HW boiler is basically verboten at this point. I need to spend time and money getting the snow tires off (if only I could afford to buy a set of wheels; damn rims are expensive, so I may have to head on over to the pick-n-pull and see what I can find – or maybe just head out for a ride one of these nights with my floor jack and lug wrench to see if somebody left a Hyundai laying around somewhere).

Finally decided to pull the plug on my cable and switch to Dish. It’ll save me quite a bit each month (no more HBO, though; I’ll miss Bill Maher and the upcoming season of True Blood, but maybe I can add it in this summer for a couple of months), plus give me the satisfaction of telling Time Warner to kiss my ass (except I need their Internet service, and I really hope they aren’t gonna screw up and cut that off when I cancel the cable – ‘cuz TW kinda sucks in that respect especially).

If you wanna switch to Dish, let me know. You get $50, I get $50. It’s a win-win.

Speaking of money, they just keep piling it on. Yesterday, I got the registration renewal for my van, which is up in May. They want $80 plus a new $20 “use fee” for a total of $100+ for two years. This new fee must be something Governor Snotball invented in order to balance the budget without raising taxes on millionaires (I haven’t checked, but I suspect there are limousine and Mercedes exemptions).

Today is our bi-weekly meeting, and our “team leader” is out recuperating from surgery, so we’re left unprotected from the next higher level of mucky-muck. Should be freakin’ great.

Oh well, at least it’s warm there. My nose is cold.