Yesterday, with the help of a neighbor who is a hero, I cleaned off the driveway. I also dug a path to the trash barrels on the side of the house and cleared a path from the street to the fire hydrant. I didn’t clean off the cars. Today I cleaned off the cars.
I hate snow and there was a lot of it. I guess that means there was a lot to hate.
In lieu of flowers, send money to the Red Cross and any Ukrainian charities you can think of.
I went out to shovel. Mr Fat Ass got as far as a path down to the snow bank at the end of the driveway. I was huffing and puffing like a steam engine on it’s last legs and I was thinking maybe I should go in and recover for a bit before having the heart attack that we all know is in my future.
Just then one of my neighbors, who was pushing his snow blower down the street, waves hello and starts in on the huge snow bank. I don’t know the guy’s name. I am not even sure which house he lives in. He has my thanks though. Sincerely. I feel like the dude might have saved me from a really bad night.
I made sure I kept digging and hopefully made it clear that we were in it together, or something like that. He blew away most of the snow bank and a big swath of driveway behind the cars.
Thank you, Sir. Thank you very much.
It’s snow and we have a ton of deer in the yard. Santa must be around here somewhere.
Our deer friends look cold and snowy and I’m guessing they are feeling pretty miserable right now.
Also, we haven’t gotten much more since my last snow pic post. Hopefully it’s as deep as it is going to get now. Fingers crossed.
Still snowing, still piling up.
Let’s try tracking the snow storm using pictures. It didn’t work last time because of the wind and it probably won’t work this time either, but there you go.
~8:45am:
Snow… it was 60 degrees out yesterday.
This could probably go under the Stir Crazy Files. It seems like I talk about taking the garbage barrels out to the street way too often for comfort. I’m going to do it again, but I think the reason I do it is because it’s something that happens outside of the house. It’s as close to outside social interaction as the pandemic lets me have. How pathetic is that?
Anyway, I had to take the barrels to the street this morning. I woke up around 6:00am and I was going to get out of bed and take care of it, but I checked the weather and it was six degrees out. How about we wait and see if it warms up at all first, m’kay? I rolled over and went back to sleep.
I got up an hour later and did my full morning routine. A few months ago the trash pick up was getting here at 7:00am and I had to make sure everything was out before the sun came up. Now they are showing up mid-afternoon so I have a little breathing room. Someday it will bite me on the ass, but for today I took advantage of it.
My plan to wait and see if the air warmed up was successful. It was all the way up to eight degrees. I put on my winter coat, sighing in frustration. Then I was just about to step outside when I paused and put on a pair of gloves. Do you know what that felt like to a New Englander with 50 years of winters behind him? It felt like I was admitting defeat. I only had to walk to the side of the house, drag two barrels to the street and then come back. I need a jacket and gloves for that? What a wuss. Winter has beaten me today and I am not happy about it.
In my defense though, when I came back inside the house my glasses immediately fogged up enough that I couldn’t see. I feel like that was my spec’s way of telling me that the coat and gloves were a smart move. Thanks, spectacles.
On a totally unrelated note. I have a song stuck in my head. It’s from the movie The Hangover. I have no idea why it’s stuck in my head. How did it get there? Jen heard me singing it to myself and now she has it stuck in her head too.
We’re the three best friends that anybody could have:
That sound you heard off in the distance at about 8:15am Eastern Standard Time was me screaming in frustration. Why is it still snowing? Why?
Saturday night into Sunday morning we got some snow. An inch or so of the really light fluffy stuff. Not enough to cause problems, but enough to cock up my car music plans. I shoveled the driveway and brushed off the car on the outside (we’re still locked down so we haven’t needed both cars for quite a while and that leads to snow removal laziness) and moved on with my life.
The snow kept falling, but it didn’t stick, and while the air was well below freezing, the pavement was able to warm up enough to melt what little snow I missed.
And the snow kept falling. Round about sunset the snow started sticking again. Just barely. When we woke up today there was about an inch or so of the really light fluffy stuff. Not enough to cause problems, but enough to cock up my car music plans. I shoved the driveway and brushed off both cars this time and moved on with my life.
The sky is brightening up. The sun is trying to break through the clouds.
It is still snowing just a little bit.
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!
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.
Inside the Red Head's Head 