Weekend!
We had our first real snow of the season today. We had a… something… a couple of weeks ago that resulted in there being snow on the peak, but a day or two later, it had melted again.
This was the snow that felt like a brisk wind yesterday, a cold wind today, that turned into little snow pellets about the size of Nerds candy, that then turned into big fluffy flakes like in the cartoons. It started sticking to the grass and to the car hoods when, sadly, it stopped snowing. It’s back to this weird drizzly thing that happens just a little too often to rely on “intermittent” windshield wipers, but not quite often enough to put it on the lowest regular setting. But that’s just an indicator. I’ve got a good feeling about this. We’re going to have a storm soon.
I can’t wait. Fuzzy pants, fuzzy blankets, fuzzy hoodie, fuzzy kitties, and maybe a glass of something to contribute to feeling fuzzy while the snow comes drifting down from the grey sky and softly and quietly turns the outdoors into a great excuse to not have to leave the house for a week.
A long weekend here or there, visits from and to friends and family… why, now that I think about it, this is the last “normal” weekend we’re scheduled to have for a while. Soon we’ll have our biggest reason to not listen to the Christmas music station evaporate before our eyes, we’ll be going over to the sister’s for the big meal, and drive home past the people in tents camped out in front of the Best Buy.
So, quick! We have to do normal things while we can! Friends coming over for dinner! Go to a movie theater on a date! Sit on the couch and try not to think about how you won’t be able to just sit on the couch like this until after capital-T The capital-H Holidays! Hurry! Sit on the coucher!
Well, after going to the various stores around town, of course.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Image is “Play” by Clare Briggs. Used with permission of the Briggs estate.)
So, my last weekend proved to be a little longer than I had anticipated. Thanks to the recent earthquake (7.8, which is a big one by any standard) my office was closed until noon on Wednesday.
This weekend will hopefully be less eventful.Report
Ohh that is a big one. We haven’t had one that big in a long time. It bet it went on for a while.Report
@greginak
It sure did.Report
@james-k Very glad you and yours cam out of that sucker unscathed.Report
@tod-kelly
Thanks Tod. Wellington was a decent distance from the epicentre, so we weren’t hit as hard as we could have been.Report
I thought I was getting better. It turns out I am not. It seems that the virus-that-will-not-die will not, well, die. Things are actually getting worse. No matter. Life goes on…
It will be a family filled weekend… a belated birthday lunch for my dad and Fauxgiving dinner with my mom and the boys as they will be with Zazzy for the real deal. I have somehow been tasked with getting a Fudgey the Turkey cake from Carvel. There is also talk (emanating only from me, curiously) of heading over to Stamford for their parade. There will be an Elmo balloon. I cannot overstate what this means to a 3-year-old.
Speaking of the boys, Mayo has reached a highly agreeable state that I must remember A) is very likely to prove temporary and B) to temper my excitement about. I had to catch myself after saying, “You’re been so cooperative lately. I love cooperative Mayo!” adding in, “I love you even when you’re not cooperative… it just makes things so much easier.” Parenting is hard.
Little Marcus Allen, on the other hand, is still making sense of Halloween, namely in the form of demanding candy endlessly. I think he is upset that we didn’t let him move into the first house we trick-or-treated at like he so desperately tried to. I’m a little upset we didn’t either.
One more story…
Mayo’s ability to ask questions is unparalleled. And I’m qualified to say that as I am now teaching his exact same age… twice a day (29 kids a day!). He asked an average of 2.7 questions per page in the book we read today. I think he actually thinks he is required to ask questions for every page. They all fit neatly into one of the following types:
1. Genuine questions about the content of the book. Example: “What those things on his tail?” referring to the spikes on the back of a dinosaur’s tail. Cool stuff.
2. Genuine questions unrelated to the subject matter of the book but showing an intense attention to the way in which the illustrations are structured. Example: “Why this page no have a tree?” referring to two different pages with near-identical cityscapes as backgrounds but only one of which had a tree. Also cool stuff.
3. Questions he knows the answer to but which he cannot accept because they do not comport with his worldview. Example: “Why there three dinosaurs and three trees but no dinosaurs eating that tree?” referring to an illustration that indeed features three dinosaurs and three trees but two dinosaurs eating from one tree and one tree left alone. He asks this question every time we read the book, such that I actually prompted him to ask it before we turned that page. Why does he find this particular illustration so vexing? Because math trumps narrative. Coders of the OT world, he may be joining you soon.
4. Questions designed to fuck with me. Example: “Why is a crow a bird?” Also, “Why is a six story building a six story building?” Seriously? Fuck you kid.Report
i hope you get over your virus soon. Andbut I really enjoyed reading your comment.
I was totally a Mayo kid question-wise, I’m sure you’re not shocked to learn :D.Report
Thanks, @maribou .
Jaybird strikes me as somewhat Mayo-esque with regards to questions… especially those last two categories… :-pReport
Category 4? Meh. Not so much.
Category 3? That’s bugging me just thinking about it right now.Report
Category 4 suggests a budding Wittgenstein.
Especially when combined with Category 3.Report
“Because they like sharing.”
“Because that tree doesn’t taste good.”
“Because those dinosaurs are friends… but ONLY those two…”
“BECAUSE THE WORLD DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE!!!”Report
I had something similar last xmas. It took a zpack and two courses of steriods before I even began to think bout feeling better. I missed two weeks of work and spent the xmas holiday feeling blah.
Ugh.Report
That does sound UGH! I was told it was a virus and viruses just need to run their course. That was several weeks ago. I may need to make a return trip to the doc.Report
Is this that wonderful sore throat that plays out like a slow-motion cold (or flu)? I’m entering Week 2 on it, but some co-workers are on Week 4.Report
Yes?Report
What Jaybird said.
WIth extra bonus resting and counselling but otherwise do nothing but chores highly normal day because I don’t have to work this Friday YAYAYAYAYAY.Report
Even though most people would argue it’s “still too early,” I’m going to put up my little (fake) tree and the rest of the Christmas decorations. I usually do this about this time anyway (am traveling over Thanksgiving, and then that first week of December is crazy because it’s the last week before final exams) but especially this year, I need things that are simple and pretty and shiny and bright and reminders of the happier parts of my childhood just to break me out of the 2016 funk.
I plan to do that probably this evening; I cleaned up the house last night in preparation.
Tomorrow, I don’t know. I might just go out and go shopping and buy silly things for stocking-stuffers for family or little gifts to mail to faraway friends. This has been a brutal fall in a brutal year and I desperately need to try to cheer myself up.Report
@fillyjonk We have a very firm rule in our house about Christmas music and decor, that it can’t be seen or heard until the day after Thanksgiving. It’s drilling down pretty deep in my psyche so I won’t be breaking it this year, but I am also really looking forward to getting it all out this year especially.Report
When I was a kid we didn’t decorate until like December 20 (but then again, we had a live tree). It seemed like FOREVER between decorating-time and Christmas.
Now that I’m an adult, I feel like if I don’t put stuff up early, I won’t have enough time to enjoy it and it won’t be worth doing. Also, I’m way busier and at home less than when I was a kid.
(And I live alone, so no one can gripe at me over it.)Report
We are much alike in this respect. I’m just getting to the point where I kind of want to put on a Christmas album to listen to around the house, but are forcing myself not to do so. And we’ll likely get a tree wither the Friday or Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. I just love the way the house feels when all that stuff is up.Report
Somehow home Christmas decorations are different from store Christmas decorations.
Some ladies two blocks from us have amazing Christmas lights – the whole house, the fence, the gazebo in the front yard, the treehouse in the back, the trees all the way around the house, and the canopy of trees right over to the other side of the street, are all brightly lit. Fledermaus saw a crew hanging the lights with a cherry picker. This is wonderful.
But so help me, if I see one single holly leaf or spraypainted faux-frosted window in a store before the first of December…Report
Yeah, I kind of object to the ads (though in every election year, they feel more welcome, after the campaign ads) and the blaring of commercialized carols and the pressure to buy.
I mean, don’t get me wrong: I love giving and getting presents but that’s not really what Christmas is all about.
And if I don’t hear “All I want for Christmas is You” this season, I could be happy.Report
Cleaning the house.
Friend and her parents (who are visiting from foreign lands) coming over for dinner. Giving them the whole ‘murica thanksgiving.Report
My Thanksgiving vacation is supposed to start in about 6 hours, so I’ve been spending all morning putting out fires, reminding my team to behave while I am gone, and making sure my coverage guy knows what to do so I don’t get any phone calls.
Sunday morning I will do the Great Big Grocery Trip to get all the Thanksgiving ingredients. Dishes will start going together on Wednesday for the Friday meal with the family.
Hoping next week to also do some duck hunting, lots of movies, and battery recharging.Report
Already at your deer limit for the season?
Rifle season opens tomorrow in my corner of the Shenandoah Valley… we’re behind schedule in that we usually get what we’re looking for during black powder season. When the rifles and the city folk come out, the deer go to ground – at least in my woods.
I had a really big buck get away last Friday on a no-fire, and then had a second shot that resulted in a fizzle-fire miss. We don’t usually take bucks, but this one was really unique…I’m sure he’ll get bigger each time I think about it.Report
I decided to take this deer season off, which I will probably regret later. Just too many hours at work and trying to pick up the slack at home on the weekend. I was told the first weekend of gun season here was un-productive (a bit too warm) but everyone is expecting this weekend to be awesome with colder temps.
I did have one friend take a nice 10-pointer last weekend, but most of my buddies that were able to get deer were just stacking does in the freezer.Report
“…Dishes will start going together on Wednesday for the Friday meal…”
Man, I really *don’t* understand middle America… :-pReport
@kazzy Yeah in Canada, someone (or multiple someones) gets up at 5 in the morning to make everything happen by suppertime :D.Report
I’m just hoping to get better. I got hit with a bug this week, and it’s terrible. I can’t stay hydrated, mu muscles are beyond achy, my eyeballs actually hurt inside of my head, every time I cough (often) it feels like someone’s driving a pike into the side of my head, my body can’t regulate my temperature well, so one moment I feel like I’m burning up and going to sweat to death and the next I am shivering with chattering teeth. REALLY not wanting to go into Thanksgiving week and everything I have to do them to get ready for the big day feeling like this.Report
Here it’s more like “Holy cow! How is there still barely any snow on the ground?” We’ve had two big drops of snow, both of which were followed by warm spells that melted them away within days.
We might go to a friend’s art opening tomorrow. Otherwise, hopefully, a whole lot of not going out much, getting the house cleaned, a bit of renovation progress, etc.Report
I hate banks just can’t stand ’em
Give me a shovel man I’ll plant ’em
Six feet under is where they belong
I hate banks is the name of this song
Trying to relax while in escrow hell, that is the plan for this weekend.Report
I am, at this exact moment, running the lights for Amy Ray and some other Georgia songwriters. 🙂Report