Tag: New England

Winter Never Ends

Yesterday was April 9, 2025. It was 7:30am or so and I was packing up to leave for work. I asked Siri how the weather was and she told me it was 26 degrees out. 26… in the second week of April. I looked out the window at the car and said out loud, “at least there’s no ice on the car.”

Fast forward to this morning, April 10, 2025. I don’t have to drive to work today but when I got up at a little after 6:00am I did happen to look out the window at the driveway. Sure enough, this time there was ice on the car. It was 29 degrees out though so it’s practically a heatwave.

Winter never ends around these parts. It starts around the last week of August and it hangs on for dear life until sometime in late May or early June.

Southern California is calling me. Hell, at this point maybe it’s Mexico calling me. Should I start learning Spanish? You know, just in case?

Not Again

I posted something yesterday about how there was a little bit of snow during my morning commute and how snow in April sucks the big one.

I have been in meetings all morning today. Back to back to back, one after the other. Woah, that’s a lot of meetings. At a few minutes after noon I was listening in to the third meeting in the string and something caught my eye outside of the window. I was on a video conference so I didn’t want to stare at the goings on outside so I took the briefest of glances.

It was snowing like a freakin’ blizzard. Oh, fer cryin’ out loud. What the hell, mother nature?

It didn’t last long. I took a second side-eye glance about 20 minutes later and there was still some snow falling but it was much lighter. 15 minutes after that the meeting ended and the snow had slowed down to a few random flakes.

All in all this past winter was not that bad. It was very cold, and February had a ton of snow. Outside of that, it could have been much worse. Why then are we having to deal with snow falling on both the seventh and eighth of April. It is most definitely not winter any longer. At least it isn’t sticking but still… come on. Enough is enough. I want my spring to look and feel like spring.

Winter, go home. Your mother nature is calling you. Jerk.

New National Anthem

I had a moment today. I put the Bruins game on the radio just in time to hear the national anthem. Given the circumstances of the day it made me feel sick. I thought I was going to vomit. National anthem, my ass. What nation would that be? The fascist states of america? That nation? Fuck that. I don’t live in the US anymore (there is no US anymore), I live in Massachusetts.

So what should we use for a new Massachusetts national anthem? The obvious choice is probably “Must Have Got Lost” by the J Geils Band. That feels a little too obvious. If we wanted to go with an instrumental song I would suggest “Foreplay” by Boston. Again, probably not the best choice.

Assuming the other five New England States join in my little Massachusetts Independence crusade and we create the United States of New England, I would go with this one…

“New England” by Tanya Donelly. That would be pretty much perfect.

First Time in Ages

I just did something that I don’t think I have done since before Covid came along and mussed everything up.

As previously mentioned, it’s snowing today. Not a lot. We have about an inch on the ground. We might get another inch on top of that, but by no means is today’s storm anything to be worried or upset about, other than the fact that snow is always a pain in the ass. We are New Englanders. This is nuttin’.

However, I needed to go out and do the grocery shopping. My wife has been eating super healthy lately and she was out of all of the healthy things she needed for lunch. I had to go out and restock so that she could have a good lunch. That means I had to go out to the store before the snow stopped. Not only that, I had to go out before the snow removal crews started working. In other words, I had to drive in the fresh, untreated snow.

As previously stated, that was not a big deal. There was enough snow to make the roads a little slippery, but not enough to cause any real troubles for an experienced snow-driver. It made me think though… when was the last time I went out before the plowing started? I can’t remember. It’s been a long, long time. The last time had to have been pre-Covid lockdown. There hasn’t been a time since then that I had to be somewhere bad enough that I couldn’t wait for at least the plows getting one whack in. The only thing I could think of that would have made me go out right away was if one of my parents were in the hospital. If that happened I must have blocked it out of my memory. There was the drive home from Vermont a few weeks ago… does that count? I think the side roads might not have been hit yet, but the main roads had. I don’t know.

So I guess all I did today was spiritually renew my New England Winter Driver ID card. Yeah. I can still drive in the snow. Yippee for me, babie.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, Massachusetts! Happy Thanksgiving to the rest of New England too.

Our family Thanksgiving is actually going to happen on Saturday. The kids are at their dad’s today so we’re punting to the weekend in order to have everyone together.

For today though, Jen and I are going to have a mini Thanksgiving on our own. We found the tiniest turkey in the world and it’s going into the oven shortly.

When we decided to not have anything big today I had thrown out the possibility of me and my love going to New York to see the Macy’s parade in person. Clearly we didn’t go, but we’re watching the parade on TV and… well… thank goodness we didn’t go. It’s pouring rain in New York and everyone looks drenched and frozen and miserable. Bullet Dodged.

So, my New England neighbors, enjoy your turkey and stuffing and have an extra helping for me!

Back on Track

We’ve been home for about five hours now. Here’s the summary of the drive there and back:

That’s a nice chunk of driving. 397.6 miles in seven hours and 25 minutes. Nice.

UMass Lowell beat the University of Vermont 3-0 in what was a pretty boring game. Lowell’s second goal was a thing of beauty. It was a two on one break away and the shooter roofed it over the goalie’s left shoulder. Perfect. Lowell’s third goal was a little painful for the Vermont fans. A one on two that should probably have been more like a dump and chase but Lowell’s forechecker just put it on net and poof, goal. Nice.

Before the game we met with the kids, including Harry’s girlfriend, for dinner and had a really nice time. Jen wasn’t feeling well by the end of it though so she stayed at the hotel during the game. That made us all sad. We missed her. After the game we all went back to the hotel and were able to spend some time hanging out with Jen, who was feeling a little better. That made up for missing the game.

Since coming home I’ve just been trying to recover from all of the driving. I did manage to run some errands and do a little around the house. I made lunch and I am going to make dinner too. First though, I have to do my morning exercise that I couldn’t do in the car today. I’s 4:20pm. Let’s make believe that it’s 5:20am and get it done.

Montpelier, VT

On the drive home from visiting the kids in Burlington, VT we stopped in the state capital, Montpelier. We were looking for a breakfast place. Yelp said it was open. Reality said it was closed. We were sad, but we did drive right past the capital building which was nice.

78/365