derekl_1963

I haz a grump.

• The weather has not been overly cooperative the last couple of weeks with getting out and making photographs.
  
  
• The weekend was warm enough that the little heaters I have in the workshop could make it comfortable to work out there, and now it is not.
  
  
• For the second day, it's snowing here - in the middle of freakin' March!
  
  

Don't you get it Winter? We're done. It's over. It was fun while it lasted, but I'm ready to move on.

With the roads still being quite icky, our friend Rich gave Brenda a ride to work. But by noon, the rising temperatures and rain had cleared the roads enough so I could get out and run my errands... I felt like Rocky from Chicken Run shouting "Freeeedooom!", only (hopefully) without that sudden splat at the end.

Once I got off the back roads, the weather was no longer a problem - instead it was the pedestrians and drivers in the parking lots who seemed oblivious to the slush and traffic and to have the collective IQ of overcooked eggplant.

I was able to pick Brenda up from work, and we celebrated the end of the storm by hitting Silver City for beer and dinner. (Yay good beer!).

But now that the Snow Day series is over, Mother Nature Productions is running her next feature - Windstorm! it's going to be an interesting week...

It's finally stopped, and we've got about four inches. They've plowed Rocky Point, but there's a lot of icy crap underneath, so Brenda isn't going to even try.

So, lots of shows on TIVO and beef noodle soup for dinner seems to be the order of the day.

There is something basically very wrong with it being the first of May, bright and sunny outside - and having my heater running and the thermometer on the deck reading 45 degrees!

But, on the bright side, I'm off in a little bit to photograph baby goats.

I just realized I've been updating on Facebook, but not here - so here's a rough chronology of the last 36 odd hours...

Mon, Brenda only worked a half day as the conditions worsened. While we were cooking dinner, the power started blinking so we moved the generator from the garage to the front porch. Of course, after that - no more blinks. Despite the rising wind, we thought we had it made...

Famous last words.

A little before 9PM, without warning, *wham* - and we were dark. I'd preheated the house so we had a little margin... But by 1.30 AM the temperature inside had dropped to near 60 (too cold for little Caramel), so we fired up the generator, rigged extension cords to the fish tanks and to a heater in the bedroom and moved Caramel upstairs and Brenda crashed.

I sat up a little while longer, I'd strained my back hauling the generator and trying to get it started and was in considerable pain. (Hint: check the manual - once I pulled the cord with right technique it started on the second pull.) I didn't take one of my make-it-stop pills as they can leave me dopey for hours, which didn't seem smart. Finally, sometime around 3AM I managed to sleep.

My alarm went off at 6AM so I could get up and check the generator and the house. The moonlight was absolutely awesome... Back to bed.

The alarm went off again at 9AM, and while I was pulling on my shoes to go outside and check the generator again - the lights came back on. After an hour with no blinks, and coffee and a warming house, we moved everything back to normal power and started looking for damage. Nothing froze in the house or garage (the house only got down to about 50), but the pool filtration system was/is frozen solid. No obvious cracks, but we won't really be able to tell until it thaws sometime Thurs (according to current weather guesses.) Other than that, the only other damage was running a staple into my finger while reading the generator manual.

Finally around noon, I took a make-it-stop pill and crashed for a few hours. I woke up still sore, but with the pain gone.

Spent the rest of the day just piddling around, doing a little housecleaning, and watching TV. I'm still a little dopey, so it's off to bed soon for me.

KJR is rerunning Casey Kasem's old American Top 40 shows...

The number one song in America this week in 1975? KC & The Sunshine Band's "That's the way I like it".
The snow outside the window? Beautiful.
Breakfast? Corned beef hash, scrambled eggs with rosemary white cheddar, rye toast, coffee, apple juice.

Dancing with my sweetie to Barry Manilow's "I write the songs" (currently at #11)?

Priceless.