After some pretty shitty weather, spring arrived a couple days ago and I got to walk around outside at lunchtime yesterday (without a jacket, even – it was about 55°). Of course that’s all about to end. While it’s still warm today, it’s raining. The rain, snow melt, and ice dams are all combining to create some pretty nasty flooding in places. Later on this evening the rain is going to turn to freezing rain and temperatures are supposed to drop to below zero. So everything that’s wet now is about to turn to ice. And then we’re supposed to get another 16″ of wet, heavy snow on top of the ice. Thank goodness tomorrow’s Saturday (and it’s a 3-day weekend, in honor of my dad’s birthday on Monday) or it would be a real hassle dealing with the morning (and evening) commute tomorrow.
At least this cold weather will make all those Norwegian refugees who are about to enter the country feel more at home. At least until they get sick and find out they don’t have healthcare anymore. Not to mention losing maternity leave, sick leave, unemployment, disability, and college tuition. Personally, I don’t understand why we’re not overrun with Norwegians already.
On the bright side, at least we don’t have to worry about mudslides. As much as I complain about the cold these days, I’d much rather have that than the mudslides, earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes that all those shithole states get.
I’m off today, so I was able to do my storm preparation (which was basically to run the generator for a while to make sure I could get it started and roast a pound of coffee). In the olden days, I’d have made sure I had enough beer to make it ’til Tuesday but I guess those days are gone. At least for now.
I’d say that once I retire I’ll be able to pick that habit back up again, but it’s starting to look as though I was born just a few years too late for that retirement stuff.
But, hey, we all gotta do our part to help the rich get richer, right?
It’s pouring here but warm and it’s supossed to staty on the 40’s tonight. Tomorrow night it goes down to 14. At least the snow is off the walks and driveway. We get more snow on Tuesday and Wednesday. As long as I have to deal with snow maybe I should try to immigrate to Norway (though I have no idea why they’d want me).
Yesterday afternoon, about 60 degrees. This morning, 10 – and still dropping. Very nasty wind and at least 6″ of very fine, dense snow. Should be like pushing wet sand around with the tractor.
But, hey, at least I don’t live in a shithole country (where it’s warm).
I guess the Cheeto Bandito is just one link in a long anchor chain of draft dodgers.
Sad news.
RIP, Ursula.
Though she’s described as a “fantasy writer,” my first exposure to Ursula Le Guin was when I had to read “The Word for World is Forest” for an anthropology course I took way back when (we also read “The Forest People” by Colin Turnbull – another good read). Her father -Alfred L. Kroeber – was an anthropologist, from whom she acquired her “anthropological attitude.”
From “The Farthest Shore”:
Personally, I kinda wish I didn’t know I was gonna die. Mostly I wish I didn’t know that the people and critters in my life would be leaving me one day (assuming I’m not the first one out the door, that is).