After a whole summer where almost every time I wanted to take the camera out during the morning golden hour the sky was an unbroken, unending ceiling of clouds, the three days I’ve had to go into the office this week have been greeted with blinding sunshine every morning. Not a cloud in the sky.
Figures.
Yesterday the temperature outside hit 80 degrees. Right now it is 63. It is November 7th. It should not be this warm.
I am taking advantage by opening some windows and letting the cats go wild. It’s too warm for this time of year though. It’s getting to the point where it’s alarming.
October 28, 2024… the worst day of the year.
Why?
I had to go out this morning to run a couple of errands. I needed to go to the supermarket to grab something I can cook for dinner tonight. As I was putting on my coat I asked Siri to tell me how the current weather looked. She answered on our bedroom Homepod and said it was snowing.
Bullshit. I looked out the window. Everything was wet, as if we had a little rain not long ago, but there was no snow falling. I felt better about the state of the world in that exact moment, but the seed had been planted. The signs pointed to today being a serious downer.
When I got to the supermarket and got out of my car it happened. I saw the first snowflake of the year. It was followed by a second and a third and maybe a few more, but that was it. In the time it took me to walk from my car to the building it had started and stopped. When I left a few minutes later it had not started again, and it continued to not snow all the way home.
It doesn’t matter though. The first snow flakes have fallen. Winter has truly arrived. It is all down hill from here, folks. It’s all over.
I am working from home this morning, but my wife Jen is not. She left the house at about 8:00am. I walked her to the door and watched her go. When we first looked outside we saw it.
There was ice on the car.
October 15, 2024… the first instance of winter frost.
Damn it.
I hate winter.
What day is it? Who knows. It’s Thursday, right?
Is it too early to start thinking about plans for the weekend? It is the height of leaf peeping season here in New England. We thought about going up to the mountains for a look last weekend but we decided against it. If we go this weekend the traffic will be insane. I checked the weather for our area and Saturday looks great while Sunday looks rainy and crappy.
I don’t know. We’re trying to plan a visit to the kids but that won’t be for another couple of weeks. We have a couple of work days to get through before we figure anything out and maybe we will just hang out at home. I don’t know. After a bunch of day trips on our week off/staycation last month I just have the road trippin’ bug.
We will figure it all out soon enough. Stay tuned.
It’s official. Tomorrow is the first day of Autumn and tonight is the first time that I can see my breath.
Summer is over.
Screw you, Mother Nature.
Today has been an okay work day for a last day before a vacation kind of day. I still have one hour and 42 minutes to go before said vacation, but I will get there.
I’m starting to sort of chomp at the bit though.
Today has been busy without being stressful. I have had a lot of things to do but none of them have been high pressure or high profile or anything like that. Just a bunch of administrative type things. The customers have been quiet so I have been able to focus on things that need to get done. I am thankful for that.
The Great Pink Floyd Reverse Order Playlist is now back to Animals from 1977. Great record with some absolutely outstanding guitar playing from David Gilmour.
Endless River – Complete
Division Bell – Complete
A Momentary Lapse of Reason – Complete
The Final Cut – Complete
The Wall – Complete
Animals – Currently playing track two, “Dogs”
Wish You Were Here – Up next
Dark Side of the Moon – On double deck but I probably won’t get to it today.
What else should I mention for the benefit of some future version of me looking back at Friday the 13th of September 2024 out of some sense of boredom or a this-day-in-history kinda thing?
The weather at the ocean for the next week looks excellent, according to the long range forecast I just checked. I think a sunrise photo session is a given. I hope to finish off a couple of rolls of film while I’m at it. I still have three rolls from Disney back in May that I have to get developed. I’d really like to spend a day in Boston if I can, but who knows if that will work out.
I am also going to my Dad’s place tomorrow morning to fill up a few boxes with books to donate to the public library in Tewksbury. They are having a donation drive tomorrow and they can have whatever they want from Dad’s book stash. If there is anything they won’t take (why?) I will bring them to Goodwill or something.
Those things, plus some music, plus spending a ton of time hanging out with the love of my life, plus helping the kids out with something next weekend… I think I have my staycation pretty much planned. 86 minutes to go until it starts.
Remember yesterday and the day before when I posted little blurbs about how crappy the weather was? Today is Monday and we’re back to work so…
I’ve said it before and I will say it again: Hey mother nature… bite me.
I took a film camera to my dad’s. I was going to stop at a spot on the Concord River on the way home.
When I left dad’s it was raining.
Because of course it was raining. Of course.
Bellana is back in Vermont. She left last night and stayed over one of her friends’ house in order to cut down on her morning commute today. At our house she was three hours away from work, and today is a work day for her. I get it. It makes me sad to see her go, but I am also really happy we had her for a few days. Even more so as we had Harry for a few days before that, and their visits overlapped so we had them both for a day. That made me really happy. That was an extra good night.
Jen is working from the office today. I am working from home. That means I am here by my lonesome, just me and the cats. I have a podcast playing on my MacBook and it’s streaming to Home Pods scattered all over the house. I don’t have to pause the podcast if I need to get up and leave the room. Heh heh. Technology is cool. When Jen comes home I’ll shut off any streams that are anywhere other than Harry’s room/my office space.
The Great Heatwave of 2024 is going to become official today. The forecast calls for the temperature in my little city to hit 99 degrees. That will be three days over 90. Heatwave: Confirmed. It is 9:10am right now and it’s already 83 degrees. It’s going to be fun.
The forecast for the rest of the week? Rain and clouds and awful. Back to normal, I guess.
After complaining about crappy sleep for the last week or so, I finally topped six hours last night. In fact, I topped 7.5 hours. It was broken though. I fell asleep at 9:30pm. Not by choice. I just couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore and zonked out. Normally I try to eat something before I go to sleep out of fear that my stomach will get so empty over night that it will hurt. A snack at bedtime avoids that problem, but I didn’t have one last night. My last bite to eat last night was at 7:49pm. I woke up with a bit of a stomach ache at 2:30am. I had a little snack and felt better, but I couldn’t fall back to sleep until well after 3:00. Oh well. I felt really tired when I woke up today (almost an hour later than I had planned) but I feel okay now. Here’s hoping I won’t be totally exhausted today.
Okay, red head. Back to work.
Inside the Red Head's Head 