Winter Storm Watch Warning

Damn that global warming. *heh*

My Wonder Woman reported to me that the secretary at her M-W-F school greeted everyone as they arrived this morning with, “Happy Friday!”

Yep. Snow forecast for America’s Third World County–up to a foot by tomorrow afternoon/evening, over ice and around 2″ of sleet as a base.

Bearing that in mind, and recalling the Great Ice Storm of 2007, which took out power for much of the county for most of January that year, around noon today I began rounding up supplies. A propane-fueled camp stove and the appropriately-sized bottles of fuel, oil lamps, etc. If power goes out again, we may once again need to travel out of town–out of county–for my Wonder Woman to complete grad work assignments (just hunting up a hot spot),since we no longer have a backup dialup service, but for other needs, we should be OK. Sure, with temps projected to go as low as -6 Fahrenheit, I’ll need to keep the water running a wee tad to avoid freezing pipes if we love power, but that’d be a small price to pay.

Everything’s pretty well weatherproofed here at twc central. We have ice chests for moving fridge stuff outside for keeping, if power’s out too long. Plenty of propane for the camp stove and as long as we have water, the hot water heater (natural gas) will help warming the core of the house. (Help keep the pipes unfrozen, too, as hot/cold pipes are run very closely together.) Worked well enough during the bitterly cold weather in January 2007 when power was out here at twc central for a couple of weeks.

Of course, there is that client who needs onsite help out in the boonies on Tuesday afternoon. I may have to defer that, knowing just how steep and rough her nearly 1/4 mile drive is. Sadly, the roads to her house are less navigable in icy/snowy road conditions now than in 2007, since they’re now blacktopped. Icy/snowy dirt and gravel roads are often easier to drive in icy/snowy conditions. Oh, well.

Anywho… twc may be offline (or not) intermittently, for “weather days”. We’ll see.

Mini-micro-update: Banner streaming across TV screen has darned near everything in a six-county (four-state) area canceled already, except for the local schools here in America’s Third World County.

December Schedule

Just an FYI. From now through December 25, Christmas music only here at twc. A different music video–sometimes more–daily starting tomorrow and running through Christmas morning.

No Surprises at All

I doubt that readers here will be surprised by anything in the video below, but I’d encourage you to spread it… and to do as the video suggests and expand your knowledge of The Cult of Hate that is Islam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib9rofXQl6w

“Know your enemy” is a wise saying indeed… And Islam is, by its own definitive “holy books” YOUR enemy, unless you submit to it.

And further…

[audio:Islamnot4me.mp3]

Finally, a Little Character…

Nothing earth-shattering (Kaboom!), but of passing interest to me…

Like Marat, I like to use a nice long soak for other things besides just “bathing”–notably reading and sometimes writing. Unfortunately, I don’t have a nice lil “bath desk” like he apparently did (according to the artist, at least), so reading eBooks–unless I wanted to do so on my Palm, which is on its last legs and so could be sacrificed to an accidental dunking–or writing a blogpost Is Not a Good Idea. Fortunately,though, no one’s assassinated me during a nice long soak… yet.

But I may have cause for a bit of paranoia in that department (is it paranoia if someone really is out to get you?). Let me back up a bit…

When Lovely Daughter moved back in for a short while in order to save money and retire a few debts (a Very Good Thing!), she brought with her a cat that has proven to be the most boring cat I’ve ever known. Most cats I’ve known or “had” (the jury’s out on who was the “haver” in those relationships) have been real… characters. Our current chosen (again, who really did the choosing, I sometimes wonder, as he wandered up one day and decided he belonged here) feline “roommate” is a very interesting character who sometimes wanders around carrying on conversations with his invisible friends and who plays ball with himself, when he doesn’t manage to finagle me into playing fetch with him. Yes, he really does return his balls to me and watch expectantly for me to toss them for him again.

But Lovely Daughter’s cat? Just “Food, now!” and “Pet me!” Boring.

Recently, though, he’s taken to pushing open the bathroom door while I’m doing a soak/read, if the door’s not been latched well enough. Then? He perches on the rim of the tub and stares (glares?) at me in a threatening manner. *heh* Even more recently, he’s begun stepping onto my chest and pushing himself in my face with a big “Pet me, or else!” demand.

I have begun wondering if Marat’s fate awaits me if I were to refuse.

Then again, I’ve started contemplating some sort of retaliation for the harassment. Perhaps a quick sweeping motion dumping him into a full bath…

Well, at least he’s finally showing some sort of character.

Thankful for Small Blessings

*heh*

Cable internet down. Our backup dialup connection died for lack of support a year ago. What to do?

Called cable “service” to report the outage. Was put on the list for a repair call… one week and a day from now. *WTF?!?* Escalated the call to a supervisor, voiced my observation that a week and a day was completely unacceptable. Put on hold. “The techs are rolling now.”

Still…

Sitting outside the county public library sucking at the thin pipe it offers, I’m grateful for small blessings. My Wonder Woman really needed to check on some grad work status, and I have my internet addiction to feed, so even a thin pipe on a shaky wireless connection is a blessing.

No Yardwork Today

103.0°F–2 hours after posting that, 104.4°F–at the local high school weather station. “Heat index” of 111 (110, 2 hours later, so less humidity? Yep).

Working inside today.

Unsolicited, Unpaid Endorsement

As regular readers may recall, back in March I injured my right knee’s ACL. It’s been a decent recovery so far, but I’ve continued to use a cane, in addition to two elastic bandages and one knee brace, to support myself when walking.

And it is support, not merely for stability and balance which is why I’ve been using the cane on my right side: to take weight off the knee when walking, in order to abate the pain, and use fewer pain meds.

But today, I bought a pair of these:

and for the first time in months I could walk without a cane, without pain. Yes, walk. Without pain. Full weight on the leg. Immediately. I simply set the cane aside and walked to give it a try (well, “set the cane aside”=”held the cane just in case” but there was an immediate difference). And yes, I had tried doing w/o the cane’s support earlier, and it was like stabbing my knee with an ice pick.

Of course, I’m still wearing the elastic supports and knee brace for stability (balance is fine, TYVM), but walking. Without pain.

Wonderful.

I like these Skechers Shape Ups. Lots! Time will tell if the claims made by the manufacturer pan out for me, but the simple fact that I can walk, without the cane supporting a large part of my weight, without pain is a BIG DEAL to me.

Good Stuff, Maynard.

Free At Last!

“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”*


(*twc central mortgage is paid off)

More Locusts

Well, posting is going to be sparse again for the next couple of weeks. Booked to the gills, so don’t think I’ve simply stopped blogging.

More: totally waxed, right now, so this is all there is to this post. Check out my blogroll for some good reads.