Tag: Snow

Snow Ruins Everything

I got my fat ass out of bed early this morning so that I could do some singing in the car for RPM and it’s effin’ snowing out. Not a lot, a couple of inches of fluffy crap, but it’s ruined my morning plans. I could still go out do something, but every parking lot in the city is going to have plows all over it. I can’t have a magical, perfect, pristine vocal take ruined by the sound of a plow in the background. Gross. Now that I think of it though, magical, perfect, and pristine never happen so maybe the sound of a plow in the background will be in improvement. No. Even I’m not that desperate.

Looks like the plan for today is to write more lyrics, write more melodies, add more guitar parts where needed, and maybe try to start a new song or two.

On a different note, Jen and I watched the first two episodes of Only Murders in the Building on Hulu and I think I might be a little bit hooked. I must admit there was a tiny bit of culture shock watching two of the Three Amigos be less than cordial to each other. Also there was a bit of culture shock hearing the kid from Wizards of Waverley Place dropping f-bombs. I mean, talk about being out of touch, right?

Back to the weather, we may still go out today. We might possibly brave the snow to do a curbside pickup at a store (gasp in Covid horror). I think I might be ready to start working up the courage to go into stores and businesses again. I have to do it for work and I have to do it for doctors appointments. Any time I start feeling Covid-confident, which is almost never, my mind wanders over to the band. We had a chat going last night and we know it will be a month and a half before we can start thinking about getting together (one band member has major work commitments right now) so maybe… Maybe sometime in March we’ll play again? I should buy a new amp and a new guitar to celebrate.

Okay, Robert. Get to work on that RPM thing. Get some stuff done, you lazy asshole!

Nothing is Impossible

We had an ice storm on Friday followed by two days of seriously cold weather. Everything outside is frozen solid. Unfortunately we are also in lock down like a couple of lab rats. What does that mean?

That means that I didn’t scrape off the cars when the ice storm hit. We’re supposed to get a few days of warm and rainy weather this week so I was going to let mother nature take care of the cars for us. I knew that was a bad move from a safety point of view but I was going to let it slide. Every time I looked out the window I saw the Mazda at the end of the driveway and a little voice in the back of my head whispered, “stop being a moron, go scrape the car.”

We’re supposed to have our furnace inspected today and there is still that layer of frozen snowy mix on the driveway as well as the cars, so I was already planning on spreading a little rock salt on the driveway to help with the footing. I figured I’d stop being a moron and scrape the windows on the car at the end of the driveway while I was there.

Now if you live in a cold, snowy, icy place like New England you are probably aware that clearing a quarter inch of ice off of a car’s windows after three days of settlin’ in is generally considered to be impossible.

Well I just proved that nothing is impossible. I cleared the ice off of the windows like a boss, and it only cost me one broken ice scraper and about 30 minutes of my life.

In other words… don’t wait three days after an ice storm like this moron I know did.

Sick Time

Just thinking ahead on this whole redesigning my internal organs discussion. I asked what the recovery time would look like. They said they recommend you stay out of work for 3-4 weeks while you re-teach your newly remodeled stomach how to handle different types of food. As of right now I have enough sick time banked to be out for half day shy of five weeks. I’ll have to use some of that for the slew of appointments I need to make before the surgery, but I think I am in good shape. I have a ton of vacation time that needs to be used too. Maybe some of those appointments will use vacation time instead of sick time. Maybe.

We’re supposed to have a storm tonight. I keep trying to get a forecast that gives a snow estimate but they all just say a mix of snow and freezing rain. No accumulation estimates. I think that’s a good thing. Freezing rain blows chunks but it’s better than snow, at least as far as shoveling the driveway and plowing the streets are concerned. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Have I mentioned Weather Kitty yet? It’s a weather app for iOS (I don’t know about other platforms, mostly because I don’t use them so I don’t care). It combines weather forecasts with adorable kitties. If that’s your thing, you should check it out.

So… no more caffeine and no more carbonated drinks. I had a diet pepsi before the appointment. I’ve had one since. I’m not going to say that those are the last two sodas I’ll have in my life. I am not even going to say they are the last two sodas I’ll have before the surgery… but they could be. It’s possible. Don’t hold your breath or anything, but it is possible.

This is going to be difficult. It’s also going to be worth it, but it is going to be difficult.

Sunday Morning Stuff

The plow guy did a great job. He only did our driveway, not the section of the yard that doubles as the kids driveway, but that’s okay. Those cars aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. He did a path from the driveway to the stairs on the side of the house which gains him the title of Hero++. That’s one rank higher than hero. He didn’t do the fire hydrant, but we didn’t ask him to. I went out and did it about an hour ago. Done and done.

I have some laundry to do today. I checked the dryer vent on the back of the house. It’s clear. We are all set to wash the sheets and stuff. Aren’t you happy to hear that little snippet of good news? I’m just a fountain of knowledge today.

The episode of The Mandalorian that introduces Ashoka Tano is so freakin’ good. The episode that reintroduces Boba Fett is almost as good. When he smashes the stormtrooper’s helmet with the gaffey stick? It’s like poetry, man.

Did I mention that the RPM Challenge starts the day after tomorrow? As if I haven’t been boring the crap out of everyone with music posts. Get ready for more, kids!

And that’s where we are at 12:09pm on a random Sunday.

But wait, there’s more! Just before I hit publish Bellana called. We had a FaceTime and it was lovely. Apparently our Dutch friends like to put mayonnaise on French Fries. I don’t know… I don’t know if I can get behind that trend. We’ll see.

Snowpocalypse: The Aftermath

The National Weather Service told my beloved wife Jennifer that Methuen, Massachusetts got about 14 inches of snow yesterday. That’s a good number. Anything over a foot is noteworthy, really. It’s nowhere near what the worst doom and gloom forecasts called for (I did see one that predicted 30 inches), but it’s still a decent haul.

We lived to tell the tale. The tale being Jen played lots of World of Warcraft, I finished an album and watched a lot of The Mandalorian, we ate a frozen pizza for dinner and then watched a disturbing amount of BravoTV. We never lost power. I don’t know if anyone in Methuen did, but I know a lot of people in MA lost theirs for a while. We stayed lit.

So now what? We booked a plow to come and dig us out. Normally on the day after a storm we spend most of the day wondering when they are going to show up. Wondering if they are going to show up. I was planning on writing a big paragraph about that but about half an hour ago he showed up! He’s still out there, but he’s packing up. It was one guy with a pickup truck with a plow and a snowblower and a shovel in the back. We booked it online through plowzandmowz which is your typical gig-economy service app. We didn’t talk to the guy directly, but I think we can all agree that the dude is a friggin hero!

I still need to do some shoveling. He cleared one drive way, but we sort of have two. He took the snowbank off of the end of both rows so the hard part is done. I need to shovel around the kids cars. I don’t know if I am going to bother brushing them off. It’s going to be six weeks before Harry needs his car, and six months before Bellana needs hers. Also, the forecast for the second half of this coming week is calling for warm and rainy. The cars are going to clean themselves off. I want to clear around them though, on the off chance we need to get inside one of them. I haven’t checked the path to the door on the side of the house. We usually ask for that but it rarely gets done. No big whoop. Finally, there’s a fire hydrant in front of our house. I need to get that.

Other than that? Barring any freak power line accidents or anything like that, I think we can put snowpocalypse 2022 to bed. Let’s close the book on this one and move on with our frosty cold New England lives.

I am going to watch another episode of The Mandalorian. This is the way, eh?

Snow Check In 4

3:00pm looks pretty much the same as 1:00pm. That’s the wind. The storm hasn’t slowed at all, but the wind is making it hard to judge accumulation. There are huge drifts in some places and almost nothing in others.

Right now the driveway doesn’t look bad at all, but the cars look buried. The wind does that. Oh well.