Thursday, January 18, 2018

Will someone please help me dig out of this mess?

Guy shows up to class in shorts and I want to tell him, "Dude, it's 6 degrees outside! Put on some clothes!" But then I remind myself that he's dressed appropriately for the classroom, which is so beastly hot that I've been teaching with the windows open.

Am I going to complain about the weather again? Seems like all I ever talk about lately is the weather or local road conditions. Fun fact: two of the city's snowplows are out of commission just when they're most needed, making the brick streets even more treacherous than usual. 

And here's an even more fun fact: before Christmas, the state started a resurfacing project on a stretch of highway that I drive every day; they got as far as scraping off the surface of the road before the snow fell and the salt-trucks spread salt all over that rough subsurface, and then we had a brief thaw and a ton of rain and a sudden freeze, and now that 15-mile stretch of highway is pretty much Pothole City. Every day I face a challenge: drive on the slushy, icy spots or barrel right through the potholes? Making a frequently traveled highway virtually undriveable: my tax dollars at work!

But on the plus side, the snow drives birds to seek a more steady source of seeds, so they're all over our feeders all day long--tons of juncos plus one solitary towhee that doesn't get along well with the juncos, and then we'll sometimes have a dozen or more cardinals out there all at once, providing frequent bursts of scarlet against the white winter landscape. 

The even better news is that I don't have to go to campus today, so I'm working from home, where the temperature regulator on the wood burner is on the fritz so the house is holding a pretty steady temperature of 62 degrees. So it looks like I just can't get away from complaining about the weather.

But seriously, folks: I ought to celebrate my 12-year blogiversary by writing about something more interesting than the weather, but I'm going to need a little help. Put a topic in the comments--any topic, large or small--and I promise to write something about it before the end of the month. I can't guarantee that I'll say something profound or life-changing, but at least we'll distract ourselves from the massive pile of winter that's burying us alive.

 

2 comments:

Bardiac said...

And the road construction folks are like (doing the hands up shrug): who could have known there'd be snow or ice?

Bev said...

I know! Back before Christmas when they started this project, we kept saying thins like, "Gee, I hope they have time to finish this before the snow falls." They didn't. Who knows when they'll be able to work on it again?