Nearing Mid-Winter
Monday, January 22nd, 2024 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio |
a gorgeous 32F and gloomy today.
The low all week, this week, will be 30F! I love it!
And starting tomorrow, the high will be 37F all week long, going up to 41F on Saturday!
It's supposed to rain the next three days as well, so I imagine by Saturday the snow will mostly be gone.
Few walks are properly shoveled around here, including my own, because we had that nasty slush storm right before the deep freeze, and then it snowed on top of that stuff two or three times.
Even salt wouldn't work, it was so cold, so there was no hope of busting through the ice layer welded to the concrete.
We've also seen a ton of locust pods come down the past couple weeks, now buried in various layers of snow... but there were already that many on the ground... and there are still that many more up in the tree.
It's a yearly thing, that by spring the yard is just buried in the leathery things.
And then slowly... some get mulched... some get eaten... some decay... and by about May, the grass is all green and they're mostly gone.
Mostly, but never completely gone.
I'm in a good mood today, because it feels like the worst of winter is over.
Working 2nd shift, I already notice the sun setting later again.
No longer star dark at 4:45PM, like back before Christmas, now it takes until 5:40 or so.
So with that, and the bleakest deep freeze behind us, I'm happy to get into February.
Six of Spades begins today, which means next week is mid-winter, and Imbolc... or Groundhog Day!
It's a misconception to think of February as the dead of winter.
It's a shorter month than January... the days are longer... and we have all the fun little holidays like Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, and Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras... the day before Ash Wednesday... which begins the Catholic season of Lent... which, like Imbolc, is just a way to acknowledge that spring is in the offing.
There's also Washington & Lincoln's birthdays, which then join forces to create President's Day.
That is a weird trio of days, with no real cultural significance, other than to make February a month that includes cartoonish pictures of the two presidents popping up all over the place.
It's that weird mess of symbols... a winged baby shooting arrows at hearts, and a groundhog wearing Lincoln's top hat... and beads on strings... and people walking around with ashes smashed into their foreheads... that makes February feel a lot more fun than January.
The house right now looks like a battle zone, in the aftermath of the arctic blast.
Garbage bags taped over everything, including the sink doors of the kitchen base cabinet.
A heat gun laying on a chair by the side door.
A big bucket in the bathroom, for pouring down the toilet.
And empty dog food cans in the livingroom, where Yvette took them to eat, because it was too chilly in the kitchen.
On Saturday, I found Yvette and Snoop both hangign out together on the livingroom floor!
I love it!.. because this does show how the cats really can keep her company in a meaningful way, while I'm gone.
So, if for no other reason, the blast was good for getting Yvette out of the kitchen after a year.
Slowly this week, I'm gonna be finding a new normal... inside, outside, at work, and in the financial sphere.
The old normal... if you can call it that... ended with the four-day weekend for Thanksgiving.
So it's been about a two-month whirlwind of non-normal activities... such as flipping the studio... or walking crucifixes to the church in the fog... or shampooing carpets in an empty school building... or pouring water into the frozen toilet.
But the fever dream of the winter solstice is over now.
I think maybe I'll take the Christmas tree out of the livingroom window tonight.
Still 32F, but it started lightly raining around 9PM so everythings covered in a very thin layer of ice.
The roads were a bit slick, but I made it home.
The walk with Yvette was also pretty sketchy, with both of us slipping here and there, and going slow.
Prowly met us on our return trip up the block, and came inside with us to eat.
He also rendezvoued with us this morning over by Talma.
A year on, I think this is definitely another point of bonding between Yvette and the cats, that they will now just appear somewhere on our walk, and everybody recognizes each other.
She greeted me in the livingroom when I got in tonight, which was an absolute first since Dad died.
My voice is definitely improving after singing in the car for a few weeks now.
I'm able to hit the higher notes with ease now that were difficult or not possible a month ago.
Other than that, the only news is that my W2 came today, so I can do my taxes anytime.
I also got something about earned income credit, which has never come before, so maybe I'll qualify this year... which would be nice, because it adds a lot to the return.
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