Locked down for eleven months and now snowed/iced in for the weekend.
That means you’re getting some random thoughts today.
Your pictures of snow from across the country have been lovely. Your stories about power outages in the ice storm have been horrifying.
Spring can’t get here soon enough.
Last week I was reminded of a winter storm some 21 years ago. We lost power during the Super Bowl and it was out for over 24 hours. We took the offspring, 10 at the time, to see Galaxy Quest, because the theater had heat.
I know it was twenty-one years ago because less than two weeks later, our youngest was born.
The rest, as they say, is history. Expensive history.
Very expensive history.
The other thing that can’t get here soon enough is the unity we were all promised.
They keep using that word. I do not think they know what it means.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t think the second season of Impeachment lived up to the first.
The outcome was predetermined. It was an exercise in political theater, and not a really good one at that.
Joe Biden has been President for almost a month. Donald Trump can’t even tweet but he’s still leading the headlines.
At some point people have to admit that the Bad Orange Man is not the problem here.
And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
It’s President’s Day. Officially.
No, not those Presidents.
George Washington’s Birthday is actually February 22. Abraham Lincoln’s is February 12.
We’re supposed to believe now that the federal holiday celebrates all Presidents.
Growing up, we had Washington’s Birthday as a holiday and we acknowledged that Lincoln was also born in this month.
Don’t @ me Karen, I’m from Southwest Virginia and went to school in the 1960s.
We did, however, have pictures of both Washington and Lincoln in the classroom over the blackboard, along with the American flag (yes, Karen, it had 50 stars when I was in school) and the cursive alphabet.
Personally, i think we might have avoided some of the recent unpleasantness if our students actually learned a little more history in schools, real history, and yes in context.
That’s another post.
For someone else to write.
Or maybe it’s this one.
Y’all grow up.
There, that feels better.
It’s Monday but, as noted, I’m wrapping up a three-day weekend. I could have been a four-day weekend, but thanks to endless teleworking, my home office doesn’t close when the downtown offices do.
I used much of the weekend to clear out files in my home office.
What I found over Christmas was that my virtual Santa set up made me a little claustrophobic. As in, no I can’t store all of this stuff that I don’t really need.
So, the ongoing winter project is to decrapify.
And this time, I mean it.
I actually threw caution to the wind and got rid of the user’s manual to the stereo I bought in 1985.
True story: My family and I could remember it ever being in this house. I think it made it to the garage when we moved in in 1996 but went to a church yard sale not long after.
I digress.
We’re mid-way through February, and we’re coming up on eleven months of 15 days to slow the spread.
I hate that this routine feels normal now. There’s nothing normal about it.
I miss people.
I miss church.
I miss theater.
I miss…okay…I can say it….deep breath…I miss my office downtown.
Talk about the winter of our discontent.
Yes, Andrea Mitchell, I happen to know that’s from Shakespeare’s Richard III, and not just the title of a John Steinbeck novel. And, I was only an English major for one semester.
That said, I need to read both.
I’ll put them in the stack of stuff I’m going to get to while we’re under house arrest, along with the losing twenty pounds, writing the great American novel, and learning to play the ukulele.
I really do regret not making that purchase last March.
In the meantime, I’m writing, just not so much here. I’m working on the Santa business, because the Christmas season is here in nine months. I’m telling myself that when it’s warm and dry I’ll get back to working in the yard.
At the moment this is being written, I’m looking at the clock and realizing that thanks to the pandemic, 24-hour pajamas, and prostate issues, I may never get back to normal sleep patterns.
That may mean that you’ll have to search harder for your daily nuggets of brilliance from this blog.
If you find them, let me know.
Photo by Jody Confer on Unsplash