Tag: winter

Admit Defeat

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:

Why is it Still Snowing?

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.

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.

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?

Signs Point to a Rough Day

Last night, just before I was about to turn in for the night, I had a muscle spasm, or a cramp, or something in my gut that hurt like it hurts when a meteor crashes into your face. Oh my goodness, did that little sucker (whatever it was) hurt like 10 shades of hellish suck.

I’ve had this happen 2-3 times over the past 10-15 years and each time it is about 5-10 minutes of nightmare*. I don’t know what to do to relieve the pain so I get up and try to walk it off. That doesn’t help at all, but at least I am doing something. After a few minutes the pain calms down but whatever muscle is being the asshole is still twitching. Just as I start thinking I might be okay it fires up again and the whole thing starts over. After that it’s done. Last night the whole thing lasted less than 10 minutes and then I was able to lie down and sleep.

So that’s the first sign that today might suck. Here’s the second.

Last night I wrote a post saying that it was going to be horribly cold out this morning. The forecast was right. It is currently six degrees out. I should be happy that I put the barrels out last night and don’t need to go outside today, right?

We got a dusting of snow overnight. We have a grocery delivery coming this morning. I need to put ice melt down so the instacart person doesn’t slip. After all that shit last night, I still have to go outside this morning.

Here’s hoping that’s the last bad thing and that the rest of the day goes smoothly. Pretty please with sugar on top.

*That sentence is my attempt to use the most “-” characters in a single sentence ever. Did I set a new world record? Do we need to call the Guinness folks?