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The Snowy Day
Thursday, November 21st, 2024 10:51 pm |
35F and cloudy tonight.
Not much snow left now, but, OH BOY!.. was it a gorgeously snowy winter day when I got up this morning, and on through until well after dark!
More than just a dusting, we had a good inch covering the rooftops, grass, and even the pavement where it wasn't salted!
Snow was sticking to the tree bark and branches, making them two-tone, just when most of the leaves have come down!
Snowflakes were flying through the air, looking like a fog from up here in the tower, but continued to fall until well after my shift began at work.
There was slush on the sidewalk, going to the garage, and a cold, gusty breeze!
It was FABULOUS!
The sky was so dark and gloomy that it caused night to fall by 5PM... fully 30 minutes earlier than it has any right to in November!
It just looked and felt so much like winter that, for the first time, this past horrible summer felt truly gone!.. like a bad dream!
That's the nice thing about having four seasons, is that both winter and summer have that way of making it feel like the other one could never possibly have existed.
And in this case, I'm really grateful to winter for erasing summer 2024 from existence, and putting it forever into the past.
The job at Potawatomi began a month before the move, and the move happened a month before I was truly out of that house for good!
And God, July was painful, havig to go back there every single day to run hot water and leave food for Prowly... taking a few more things each time to store in the unit, or the car... agonizing over the sale that seemed like it would never close.
The high school was silent, empty, and hot as hell.
Every day was the same, relentlessly sunny day, with that blinding sun beating down on me as I crossed the hot parking lot... refusing to go down until it was nearly time to clock out!
I know I keep repeating this in my entries, and how I cried every day, but it was horrible!
And August wasn't any better!
BUT... that was the long drawn out torture of life at Melody manor ending.
The job at Potawatomi, and life here at Allerton were just beginning and this is the life that will persist for a good while into the future.
So... it's FABULOUS to finally experience this new life, in a backdrop that has nothing to do with the horrible evacuation crisis!
I've never known Potawatomi Valley High School in the winter!
And as I wrote the other night, I can't clearly remember the one other winter I lived downtown here.
So, NOW... this all finally feels new!
And I'm looking forward to a good, long, cold, snowy, gloomy, dark, WINTER!
I came home tonight, and the flat was warm and humid, and well lit, with the grow lamps.
The humidifier had run all day, and the radiator was on... which was a first, for just coming home.
What I'm really striving for is to see marked growth out of all three plants, as the months go by.
By March, I want to look back at photos and videos of them now... and say, Wow! They were so much smaller then!
And this isn't just a lonely man trying to compensate for having lost all his pets, by getting weird about plants.
Cuz I planted a tree in 2023, goddammit!
And I nursed Natalie with a bubbler for her whole first spring and summer... getting her through a rough transition phase, to start growing and being healthy!
And then I agonized this spring that she had died over the winter, because she didn't show any sign of life until almost May!
Like, I do have a history with plants, and in that department, Natalie was my BABY!
I'm as broken up about losing her as I am about Snoop, Prowly, and Yvette!
So, Zam, Phylo, and Phila aren't just leaf babies, replacing lost fur babies... they're also leaf babies to replace a tree baby!
They're also just the last greenery or link to nature I have left at the moment!
I never get to even walk on grass anymore, much less see animals or even insects of any kind!
There are squirrels running around on the high school campus, thank goodness, but you don't see them at all downtown!
I guess I do see pidgeons fly by the window sometimes up here, but they're far more prevalent on the west side of the building... probably because that's the river side.
I'm kinda shocked that I haven't seen a single spider in this flat, or in the building!
There are ZERO cobwebs in this place, after four an a half months!
I'm having a hard time dreaming up a realistic explanation for that!
It has to be some perfect storm of things like...
- Air currents around the building blowing away all the wild insects before they can get in.
- Low resident turnover making invasive bugs far less likely.
- Super good pest control practices.
- Super good maintenance, when it comes to water leaks.
- The well-sealed concrete construction of each unit making it impossible for bugs to creep out from inside the walls (if they were to get in there from the sub basement).
- The river biome itself just being different?
- Bugs hitching a ride with people and pets, from other places somehow never being able to just ride up on the elevators?.. and get from unit to unit by crossing the hallways and going under the doors?
- Too many ghosts, and bugs are scared?
- Straight up magic?
Maybe if I get that damn bathroom vent working, I'll inadvertently allow a whole new ecosystem of bugs and spiders to establish itself in the building!
They've just been waiting, patiently, in those 100 year old air ducts... for somebody to get just one vent to open up again, and let them back in!
Whatever the case, my exposure to nature is extremely limited these days!
It's all pavement, and concrete buildings, with tiny pockets of highly regulated and manicured green space here and there.
Ornamental trees... specially cultivated little rain gardens... or vast fields of carefully trimmed grass at the high school... for baseball, softball, football, etc.
I do get to ride with the occasional neighbor and their dog, in the elevators here... or catch them walking the dogs out on the street.
But those dog encounters are always so fleeting... just a tease!.. nothing more.
So yeah!.. my three plants aren't just house plants... they're my last connection to nature of any kind right now!
I guess it's weird to be complaining about that, and cheering on winter at the same time, but... here we are!
Tomorrow is Friday, and then next week is a short 3-day week, followed by a 4-day weekend, so I'm pretty stoked about that!
This weekend is kinda the prelude to that one, so whatever I get going this Saturday and Sunday, will continue through next week, hopefully.
You probably won't hear about whatever that is until Sunday night.
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