Tag Winter

Seasonal affective disorder

Michael 5 Comments

It was a sad weekend. Sad because it was time to put Rosemary to bed. Sadder because this year’s unusual weather patterns left us with an autumn devoid of autumnal hues and the annual romp through the country lanes with the top down trying to catch a falling leaf or two.

Last year’s fall foliage was positively neon, a culmination of ever more brilliant colors year over year for the past five or six years. This year…bleh. I blame it on little orange men. They’ve screwed up everything else in the world that was good.

But back to nature. It was not a good year all the way around for topless driving. The spring was too wet, the summer too hot, and the fall was too dull. A dull fall is the worsts way to end convertible season.

There’s only one thing that can be done. Not end the year yet.

It’s been more than several years since I had the opportunity to run a snowflake rally through the Christmas lights, as comforting, if not quite as comfortable, as a leafy lope through the mountains. As much as there is something indescribable in driving along the mountain roads nearing the same heights as the tree tops themselves as they give up their colorful leaves, it is even more difficult to describe the feeling of driving along inside a snow globe. Both or either must be experienced.

Of course, the problem is there is no guarantee that the holliday lights season will overlap the falling fluffy flakes season. Fortunately, with a couple quick connectors it will be no problem to wake Rosemary and prepare her for a quick midwinter excursion if the opportunity arises.

I suppose you will just have to stay tuned for updates as the seasons change. Wish me luck.

The bloom is off the rose

Michael 5 Comments

Since Sunday night my curtains have been closed.  I kept them drawn tight to prevent any heat leaking outside where each night, the low temperature found joy in dropping lower than the previous night’s, all of them starting with a “-“ sign. I don’t particularly mind the cold and snow of winter but this was getting ridiculous. I was ready to break into the vacation fund and hop a plane to Florida. But yeah, that wouldn’t have been much of an improvement this week!

Who thought it was a good idea to snow on Florida, or across Alabama, and deep into South Carolina. Has anyone checked on the Bahamas? Are we sure those white beaches are still sand? This year is not shaping up to be a good year. There have been better starts. 

We might as well face it, those record highs on January 1 were not a portend of a kinder, gentler year. It didn’t take long for this rose to lose its bloom. The honeymoon was over before it even started. 

Speaking of honeymoons, he said smoothly, have you had a chance to read this week’s Uplift.  It’s not that the honeymoon is over. Just that the best is yet to come. Go on. Check it out! 

While you’re there, consider joining the ROAMcare community and subscribe to have Uplift delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website. In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly our Monday Moment of Motivation and the email exclusive Flashback Friday repost of one of our most loved publications every Friday. All free and available now at ROAMcare.org.


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It Seemed Like a Good Idea

Michael 3 Comments

How many times have you worked up what you were certain was a perfectly good plan, an acceptable idea, a jolly good show, only to find upon execution than what you really discovered was a newer, quicker, better than new and improved way to a folly good show? We all have failures in our back pockets. Some of us consider them learning experiences. Others may try to bury them. Or as one young man recently attempted, to drown his.

Good ideas are hard to come by. When we think we might be on to something the last thing we want to happen is to see somebody else beat us to the patent office with that better mousetrap because we took the time to think things through twice. Now make no mistake about it, the world is indeed still looking for the mousetrap to beat all mousetraps but it ain’t gonna hurt to stop and give that thought a second or third go ‘round through the old noggin.

There are times some of us share our ideas with others before acting on them. The prudent among us at least listen to the advice, consider the advice, perhaps rethink some or all of our thought and then seek again even more advice. And then there are times we don’t even have to consider the advice. If that advice is “heck yeah, that’s amazing!” we probably won’t question our logic. Likewise it the advice is “you’re on really thin ice” we return to the starting point and rethink that whole though. Usually.

Sometimes our plans are so outrageous we disown them. “No, I didn’t do/think/say that!” even coming up with an alternate “plan” when someone suspects we really did do/think/say that. Sometimes, very few times fortunately, we go ahead and do something particularly unthinkable and get caught for all the world to see. And then quite rarely we get caught with such a bad plan someone like me will come along and make sure as much of the world as I can reach gets to see it because, well, because sometimes stupid cries out to be heard or otherwise you just won’t believe people still come up bonehead ideas like this. Like what?

Like this: ↓

2021-02-18cp

If you like you can read the whole story here but the gist of it is that the young man, um, make that the old enough to know better man thought: a) it would be fun to drive across the lake or b) it was a parking lot. Or perhaps c) all the above? since he gave both reasons to the local police.

So remember boys and girls, when you think you have a really good idea, don’t believe everything you think! (Oh, where have I heard that before?)

Chasing Groundhogs

Michael 6 Comments

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For Twelve days I chased that groundhog, that rodent brought to me …

Twelve handlers handling
Eleven chipmunks chatting
Ten marmots munching
Nine ground squirrels chomping
Eight gophers going
Seven woodchucks chucking
Six lemurs lounging

five – hollow – trees! 🐾

four woolen mufflers 🧣
three top hats 🎩
two fur-lined mittens🧤

and a shadow for him to later see 🕳

 

 

((C) MRoss 2021, All Rights Reserved)

 

Groundhog Day Eve Eve Eve… and it better not be the last one!

Michael 2 Comments
I love Groundhog Day. There. I said it. Again. And will again. And again. It’s a love that never abates. How could anyone not live Groundhog Day?  A furry woodland creature not known for building dams, outsmarting waskly hunters, or becoming Daniel Boone’s hat, gets more than his 15 minutes of anthropomorphic fame each February 2 and the ensuing six weeks.
 
The great and wonderful groundhog with special and semi-secret skills has the power to capture man’s interest and captivate the entire human race or at least those in the know like no other furry friend since the mink in the 1950s. Without the groundhog we would never know if we should pack away our parkas or beef up our boggins. Yes, our resident rodent is truly righteous.
 
But now the prognosticator of prognosticators, the seer of seers, the meteorological marmot is under attack, personal attack, attack by name, as in we want you Punxsutawney Phil, to be no more, to cease and desist the sharing that special knowledge of seasonal weather patterns with the ever waiting world, and retire to a life of obscurity and be replaced by a (my hands are shaking as I type this), by a (deep breath here), by a, a, a robot. A robot! Hmmph!
 
That animal support group that assumes only its ways are the ethical ways to treat animals yet cannot count even one single groundhog, nor any other animal for that matter among their leadership, claim to know what is best for that most famous furball and insist it is “long overdue for Phil to be retired.” Notice “to be retired” not even just ‘retire’ like it would be his choice, but “to be retired,” like some old horse put out to pasture. All true Phil fanatics know this is no ordinary groundhog living his peaceful and quite cushy existence at Gobblers Knob. He has been forecasting for 134 years. That one single, extraordinary example of Marmota monax has been the center of the winter weather world for 134 years. That’s one hundred, thirty seven years! To suggest he is “to be retired” is to encourage and support age discrimination, hardly an ethical stance for any mammal.
 
And what would those manic meddlers suggest we do every Second of February for our prophetic forecast fix? Artificial Intelligence.  Hmmph – again! As stated by a representative of that nebby group, an AI module attach to an animatronic groundhog could “actually predict the weather.” I can see it now, the president of the Inner Circle knocks on former Phil’s front door and says, “Alexa, tell me the weather for the next 6 weeks.” Double Hmmph!!!
 
I say no! This is not the time for Punxsutawney Phil to be retired. Not this year, not any year. We’ve seen what so-called progress does. Bulging landfills, holes in the ozone, pet rocks! When will our march to oblivion stop? Now I say, now! This is the time to embrace Phil (not too tight – he is 134 years old after all) and demand he never retire and will always guide us to our destinies. Or at least to the next six week. 
 

Phil

The robots are not coming! Long live Phil!

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Hats Off to You!

Michael 2 Comments

Earlier today I was driving to a morning appointment, stopped at a traffic light, looked over to the car next to me, and noticed the driver was wearing a hat. That was not unusual. It was early, the sun was not yet up, and the temperature was well below freezing. Very well below freezing. A hat was a good idea. I had a hat on. Everybody was who was anybody had a hat and was wearing it. Then for some odd reason I flashed back to a time 19 years ago when I was driving my boss to the train station, we were stopped at a traffic light, she looked over to the car next to us, notice the drive was wearing a hat, and commented “I can’t trust someone who wears a hat while driving.” I didn’t understand it but I also didn’t ask for an explanation. I considered it a positive that the station was just a block away and any inquiry might have been misinterpreted as a request for conversation thus delaying the drop off. Not to mention my solitude.

If anything, I think trust should be withheld from someone who doesn’t know enough to keep his or her head covered in 20° weather. That’s in F degrees. In C degrees that would be, umm, let’s see (20-32)*5/9 = -6.6666666666666, that would be like really cold. Why wouldn’t you wear a hat? Generally in those circumstances most of the rest of your body is covered. Shoes, sock, pants, shirt, sweater, jacket, muffler, gloves, ear muffs. Yep. It’s all covered. If you’re still cold you probably aren’t wearing a hat. Put a hat on! They are also practical in cold, wet, windy, hot, sunny, or arid weather (and there aren’t many other weathers).

Hats are also very accurate predictors of intelligence. Take the average no neck who wears his baseball cap backwards in blazing sun while simultaneously frantically shielding his eyes from the sun’s blaze. Not the type you want you want procreating. Baseball hats, like all other articles of clothing known to man, woman, or undecided are intended to be worn “not backwards.” Except for baseball catchers and then only during the defensive half innings of a game.

casablancaI think hats are fine. Yes it could be construed as shallow and unduly concentrating on appearances, but in my opinion there aren’t many people whose looks couldn’t be improved by covering parts of their heads.

There just aren’t many situations when a hat could not be stylish, practical, and appropriate. That’s provided you are outside of course. Hats really don’t belong on heads inside buildings except at hockey games where one always needs a hat at hand in the event of a hat trick and where better to keep a hat on hand than on one’s head. But that’s a special exception. Otherwise, and I’m talking to you men and others identifying as men, please identify with common courtesy and undoff those chapeaux à l’intérieur.

If you are wearing a hat, and you’re not indoors unless it’s a hockey game, you have my vote of confidence and trust. (But I might have to question why you’re reading this post at a hockey game). In a word, hats are cool. So be cool. And stay warm.

 

Let There Be More Light

Michael 1 Comment

Taking a break from Christmas, Santa Claus, and all things holiday, I’m talking today about a topic nobody can disprove or even debate … at least in the northern hemisphere. Tomorrow is the first day of winter. Yes it will be getting colder over the next several weeks but it also will be getting lighter! No longer will we have to eat dinner in the dark without a trip to Barcelona. No longer will we have to wake up in the dark unless you live north of Barrow. No longer will the dark hours of the day outnumber the daylight hours unless you live in a cave. The world is still working its way around the sun and we have proof!

WinterSoltice

I don’t know what this means but it looks impressive

The winter solstice happens at 5:23pm on December 21 in my neck of the woods, 3:23 after noon or 15:23 as you prefer in Greenwich. (There probably is a really cool way of calculating down to the very second when it actually occurs at your longitude and latitude and probably an even cooler way of figuring what those are. Feel free to search on your own.) Even Mother Nature is excited about this. She has scheduled the Ursalid meteor shower for Friday night, and at double its usual output even! It’s just like a real celebration with fireworks and everything. And to top it all off, there will be a full moon, the Cold Moon or Long Night Moon in Native American lore, on Friday and Saturday. All great things happening up in the sky.

Ok, if you don’t know already I made some assumptions that are flat out wrong. Sunrise won’t start occurring earlier just yet. It takes about 4 weeks for that to happen. (I don’t know why. I used to work in a hospital, not an observatory. I’m sure those people who understand latitude and longitude can help with that too.) And even outside the caves the days are still shorter than the nights and will be until the Vernal Equinox sometime in March but that’s another post. And those meteors. Eh, you’ll probably not get to see much of them with their peak coming along just before dawn on Saturday when that full moon will be its brightest. And that is assuming you’ll get to see anything including the full moon depending on the cloud cover which is one of those things that makes December famous. Remember White Christmas? Where do you think all that white comes from?

But darn it all, the start of winter is here and that means the start of spring is coming and then there will be summer and the pool will be open and I can go sit on the deck with my ice tea and paperback novel and bask in the sun. And nobody is going to disprove or even debate that one either.

Happy Winter!

Five Minutes Wait

Michael Leave a comment

If you don’t like the weather just wait five minutes. It’ll change. How many times have you heard that, said that, or wished that? Unless you maybe live on St. Lucia not during hurricane season. Around here those five minute changes are actually getting fairly commonplace. It’s sort of scary sometimes. Let me take you through 48 hours of last weekend.

Friday morning followed a couple warmish days for February north of the 40th parallel. With temperatures expected to be around 40 degrees at midday we had just completed a week of daytime highs in the 50s and 60s. At wakeup time it was about 54 degrees. We should have expected it to be closer to 24 degrees but a warm week happens just as often as the cold week.

It shouldn’t have been unexpected. The forecasters actually predicted warmer weather. Even though over half of the month to date had been at or below average for February, the half that was higher was high enough to predict that this month would be the warmest February on record. Days and weeks and months of weather being any but what’s expected are expected around here. A warmest February on record didn’t get the global warming proponents any more excited than the coldest February on record in 2015 got the global warming opponents excited. We’ve come to learn to expect the unexpected. (Trite, but descriptive.)

Anyway, Friday I woke up to 54 degree weather and a morning forecast of it getting warmer. Indeed, by 1:00 it had breezed past (with calm winds) the previous date record of 70 degrees on its way to a high a few hours later of 76 degrees under clear, sunny skies. I got to see none of this being locked away against my will at the dialysis clinic. When I emerged from their binds a bit after 4:00 in the afternoon my car thermometer confirmed I was living in a parallel city that should have been occupying the Southern Hemisphere. As pleasant as it was I could honestly say I didn’t like it and wished it would change.

You see, I wanted it to change because it is still winter. As much as I have been less tolerant of colder days as I have entered my older days I still want seasons. If I didn’t enjoy a few weeks every year of rain and new growth flowers in the spring and falling leaves and brisk mornings in the fall and even cold and snow in the winter, I’d move to St. Lucia. I also wanted it to change because there a hockey game was scheduled to be played outside Saturday evening. Who wants to see outdoor hockey in mid70 degree weather. I don’t even like to go to baseball games when it’s that hot. Not to worry. God is a hockey fan and He’ll take care of it I told myself. It took a few more than five minutes.

Saturday at wake up it was the same 54 degrees that greeted me Friday morning and at 1:00 in the afternoon the weather service was still recording temperatures in the 50s. But then (probably because I was outside rather than chained to a medieval medical machine yet dressed like I was outside the day before) the temperature took a dramatic plunge. An hour later it was ten degrees colder, another hour another ten degrees and by 4:00 as I was finally home and changed into more appropriate clothing for February weather, February weather returned with a gusto (and with wind gusts approaching 40mph).

At 6:00 when the gates opened for the game the temperature had dropped to 36 degrees and snow flurries were flitting in the glow of the high intensity lighting. At face-off the recorded temp was exactly 32 degrees. And all was right with the world.

Sunday morning I woke up to the temperature at 26 degrees, a drop of 50 degrees in 40 hours. Maybe a little chilly for some but according to the weather people exactly average for the date.

Exactly average. How unimpressive is that? But it’s ok. If you don’t like it, just wait five minutes.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

It’s ____ (8 letters)

Michael 1 Comment

It’s the first day of winter, the first of summer for those of you south of the Equator. That makes it the shortest day of the year, or the longest again for those in the southern hemisphere. And that’s good news! The days are going to get longer and back to consistently warm and pleasant. Or bad news and the days will be getter shorter and colder. It’s like a tale of two cities, or worlds. And it’s all very puzzling.

And that reminds me…today is also International Crossword Puzzle Day! (How’s that for a cheesy segue?)  (Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.)

Crossword Puzzle Day, December 21, the 102nd anniversary of the first publication of what would soon become a worldwide fascination with filling in little squares on a rectangular grid based on sometimes obvious, sometimes cryptic clues in the morning paper over morning coffee sometimes wishing it was something much stronger in that cup.

Crossword puzzles are pretty universal. Everybody knows of them, almost everybody has completed at least one of them, and a whole lot of somebodies work at one or more of them just about every day. Crossword puzzles sharpen the mind, improve vocabulary, and provide bragging rights for the nerdier ones of us out here.

I had done a puzzle or two here or there usually to relieve boredom perhaps on a flight when I had forgotten a book and was tired of paging through the in-flight catalog. Then I ended up in the hospital.  When I got to the point that I was looking forward to watching The Price is Right I knew that I was in deep doodoo. That’s when my daughter downloaded a crossword puzzle app for my tablet. Since then I have acrossed and downed my way back to mental health.

I still do a puzzle a day and my mind is sharp, my vocabulary adequate, and I’m just as nerdy as always and darned proud of it. Even if I don’t know the value of today’s shopper’s showcase.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Want to work on that first crossword puzzle. To see it and read a history of crossword puzzles click here to read Tiffany Crawford’s article on the 100th Anniversary of the Crossword Puzzle in 2013 in the Vancouver Sun.
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/This+History+December+1913/9311790/story.html

 

You’re Making That Up!

Michael Leave a comment

There is no question about it, this winter has been everything a winter can be.  Cold, snow, ice, wind, frozen fog.  Frozen Fog?  Yep, this winter has been everything a winter can be.  Cold, snow, ice, wind, and new made up weather terms to keep you tuned into the local news station because their predictions are more dire (or maybe more ridiculous) than the competition.

Everybody over the age of 1 can remember when winter was just cold.  Summer is hot, fall is windy, spring is rainy, and winter is cold.  It’s a pattern.  We’ve had temperatures in single digits for days in a row and we managed to have them without a Polar Vortex.  Let’s consider the Polar Vortex.  Not only are they making up weather, they’re not doing it well.  As far as we can recall (and we checked a dictionary to make sure) a vortex involves spinning, whirling, or twisting, like a whirlpool.  During our encounters with the Polar Vortex, the only spinning we saw was the spinning of tires on icy roadways.

When it wasn’t cold enough for a Polar Vortex we had an “Anomalous Jet Stream.”  We think they meant that the jet stream, which has something to do with the boundary between Caribbean Island Weather and Cold Canadian Weather, dipped closer to St. Thomas than to St. Lawrence.  We suppose “anomalous” works, it meaning out of the normal way of things.  Couldn’t they have just said that cold weather will push further south than usual?

Yesterday’s headline read “Winter Turns Into Category 5.” Clearly it was a slow news day.  The article went on to say that a Category 5 Winter is the most severe winter than one can experience.  Really?  We’re used to things like hurricanes being category this or that.  Big single events that have clearly defined features of severity.  If there is a Buick flying through the air, the wind responsible is pretty severe.  How do you measure several months of weather?  We’ve had winters with more snow, colder temperatures, and a greater variety of precipitation – ice, hail, sleet, and so on.  What happens if the next 3 weeks of winter turn out to be clear and sunny with temperatures in the upper 70’s.  Does it suddenly become a Category 2 Winter?

Our favorite new weather we heard came in a forecast last week.  Frozen Fog.  As it was, the weather person got that wrong and the following overnight and morning had no fog, frozen or otherwise, so we didn’t get to experience Frozen Fog firsthand.  We were looking forward to that.  It conjured up the picture of a sheet of ice suspended over the earth that would crack and shatter as we plowed through it with our cars on the way to work.  Perhaps before the winter is over we’ll finally get our opportunity to break the Fog Barrier.

Yep, there is no question about it.  This winter has been everything a winter can be.  Cold, snow, ice, wind.  Why can’t everybody leave it at that?  You didn’t see the Groundhog making up weather.  Six more weeks of winter he said.  Period.  No Frozen Fog for Phil.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?