Did Ya Hear About the Hurricane?

Tags

Dick Cheney, Election 2012, gay rights, GOP, hurricane Irene, Media, Mitt Romney, weather

You may have missed it. The media hasn’t really emphasized it that much.

So just an update. There is a hurricane along the east coast. It’s raining and the wind is blowing. Most of the people are gone. The media, by the thousands, are strung out along various shores, bays, boating marinas and so forth showing you how good they are at standing in windy rainstorms. It’s exciting.

They give a lot of useful information. Like “get out of here” and “don’t stand in front of windows,” and “don’t go outside.” They specialize in speculating about what could happen if a whole lot of “ifs” should all simultaneously occur. I like that. It’s like a game. “If it wasn’t low tide now, and if the winds should increase, and if the waters should come over the sand dune here, and if the houses weren’t all built on stilts across the way here, well if all those things happen, it could be really bad here.”

This is only surpassed by reporters driving around in circles trying to find “some damage” to report on. So far some roofing shingles have been show flapping and a piece of aluminum siding is loose. A fine politico from Massachusetts advised that “this is gonna affect different parts of Massachusetts differently.” Yeah I bet. Boy informative!  

I don’t mean to minimize the troubles that certain people are facing, but this is the usual media farce that we would expect. Heading for the movie channels today.

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Oh, by the by. I have another blog. It’s one you may have little or no interest in. It’s not designed to be a big conversation blog. It’s really my personal cookbook made public. I have tried to make hard copies of my recipes and put them in order, and nothing works well, and so I hit on this idea. Where I can organize easily and get rid of all the paper, and I don’t have to worry about losing anything.

Phew. So anyway, it’s called “What’s on the Stove?” If you like recipes, well then the best thing to do is just subscribe by e-mail and you’ll get it when I post one. I post irregularly. There are only four up now. I think. Lol. I’m going to put up one later. I also post on Just a Pinch. They have about 100 new recipes a day which are nice to run through and then bring up any one that looks interesting. For $10 you get a recipe organizer and shopping list capabilities. Also a nice apron. And their tech people are awesome. Again, if ya like recipes.

Oh the only really unique thing about the blog, is that no recipe is or will be listed there that I haven’t made and added to my regular repertoire of menu items. I’m probably going to incorporate a page just for a comprehensive shopping list, which could be adaptable to your needs. If you are so inclined. I’m anal. I know.

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Ya see, when some goofy jackass starts really getting all homophobic, then’s the time to start paying attention to his behavior. Did you hear about Mr Hinkle? The Indiana State GOPer? The one who is always pushing DOM legislation? Oh ya didn’t?

Seems Mr. Hinkle, who is pushing 60, got himself a boy on Craigslist which is a teen. And they were at a motel. And well, you can guess. Mr. Hinkle says they talked about sports. And as he put it, “he went to the edge” but thank God pulled himself back in time!

So he claims nothing happened, except the kid stole his money and his electronics. Except that his wifey, gave the kid’s sister $10,000 in hush your mouth money, except she told everybody anyway.

Will they never learn? Mr. Hinkle assures everyone he has no interest in marrying the boy.

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Did you happen to see the latest dust-up Mitty (I WANT to be President) Romney had with a lady who came to his whatever speech? She asked him would he mind stopping all the platitudes, before he cut her off. He comes off in these encounters awfully nasty, arrogant, and playing gotcha with words. He is rude and obnoxious frankly. Case ya didn’t here, he’s trying pledging not to spend one dollar on “global warming” in an attempt to stick his nose deeper into the collective butts of the TeaNutz®.

I think Mitty is starting to crackle around the edges and it appears so far at least that RIcky is surging hard and fast. I’m having a ball watching this train wreck.

Speaking of things that make your skin crawl, that’s about how I feel when I see or hear Dickie Darth Cheney these days. He is actually evil in every sense of the word. He loves him some torture. I bet he does something unmentionable to his nether regions every time he hears those immortal words, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Duval has him shaking with delight, and oh, I don’t want that image in my mind! Help! Erase, Erase!

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Time to get back to the hurricane coverage. I sure don’t want to miss anything.

 

 

Related articles

• State Rep. Phil Hinkle: I’m not gay, I just like baseball (dailykos.com)
• Indiana Republican Just Talked About Baseball, ‘The View’ With Gay Teen He Met on Craigslist [Sex Scandal] (gawker.com)
• Hurricane Irene Exposes Charlatans on All Sides of Climate Science (forbes.com)

You’d Be Snarky Too if You Dropped Your Sandwich in the Tub!

Tags

Allen West, Barney Frank, budget, debt crisis, GOP, Iowa, Joe Walsh, life in the meadow, teabaggers, weather

Okay, so that really didn’t happen. I’m not eating in the tub. . .yet. I am reading in it, and otherwise spending a good deal of time each day lolling in it. I change it about every third sploosh.

There is an art to splooshing. Technically it’s not a sploosh at all since a sploosh is a getting all wet and then getting out. It’s a drive-by bath.

No, I call it splooshing because I like the word. But it involves an extended visit to the tub, remaining submerged as much as possible to the neck, and for at least twenty minutes. I find this the optimum time to take down the core temperature.

We here in the meadow always felt pretty darn superior in our gutting out the dog days of summer without air conditioning. Who wanted to shut up the windows and doors and remain in the house during nature’s outpouring of beauty? Not we.

We managed the occasional day of fierce heat with the sploosh and the fan. We survived.

We are barely surviving this unrelenting punishment however. We are in day five of 95° or better temps. The heat index is 110° or better. Some days, there has been not a whisper of a breeze. Some nights the air is simply oppressive. I have taken to my bath at 3 am for relief.

We are eating from a giant bowl of pasta salad, supplemented by hard-boiled eggs, various lunchmeat sandwiches, and a quick burger before it gets too hot.

So, all this is meant not to engender your sympathy. We could have hooked up the air and we chose not to. It is meant to identify  the causation of today’s snark. I’m hot as hell, and I’m gonna take it until Mother Nature chooses to relent.

I’m gonna keep these short, because there are so many hellaciously idiotic morons knuckle-dragging their way through America today. Follow the links to read more of course.

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I’m often told that the TeaPeople are not universally racists and hate-mongering bigots. Mostly I don’t believe it, although I suspect a fair number of them do. It’s one thing to disagree with a person’s politics, but when you continue in your screed to make thinly veiled references to a person’s sexuality, well, I think we can safely call you a homophobe. Read more about Tea Party Nation’s attack on Barney Frank.

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To continue from yesterday, when someone tells you “we have a spending problem,” calming tell them, “no, we have a revenue problem. Ten years ago, the GOP pushed through the Bush tax cuts, reducing revenue to all time lows, and requiring us to borrow to pay off the spending spree that Dubya then went on. Now ten years later we are still waiting for the money to ‘trickle’ down our way.”

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If you didn’t already know it, Allen West, (R-FL) is one horse’s ass. He seems to glory in making outrageous statements such as “I have a higher Pentagon clearance than the “unbelievable” given his districts heavy use of Medicare. West responded by calling names: He called Debbie: vile, unprofessional and despicable, a coward, characterless, and no lady. He told her to shut up, and called her out. Laughably, he said he was turning over a copy of his e-mail to his party’s leadership presumably so she could be properly chastised by them. What a dick.

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So many dicks, so little time. (And no, that was not a call for wanton sleeping around!). Joe Walsh? Heard of that Peter Principle in action? He’s one of the new TeaPeople congressmen and from Illinois. He thinks he’s a tough guy and his people are in charge, so he calls the President a “liar”. Walsh seems intent on out-stupiding the likes of Steve King and Joe Barton. Well he was on Chris Matthews and may a screaming jackass out of himself, yelling “hey Chris” about 57 times in three minutes. Mr. Concrete Head said that the CCB bill had a “great” chance of passing into law (uhuh) and that he was not ruled by Grover Norquist, “because he has signed plenty of pledges”. He could not answer one simple question: where are the specific cuts in CCB? Instead he referred to President Obama as “your” president.

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Today’s Rethuglian doublespeak: It’s Obama’s debt. Since he has been in Washington, (six years),  the debt has increased by 50%. Read: Obama is now responsible for the entire 4 years of Bush’s second term. I can just imagine the conversation each morning: “Hello Barack? George here. What are your orders my future President?” When all the polls are against ya, well make the lies even bigger.

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Does anybody care that Tim (boring, boring boring) Pawlenty is making a last-ditch stand in Iowa? Nope, didn’t think so.

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Well, it’s over 90° and I’m off to my bath and book. Keep cool.

Related articles

• Congressman Joe Walsh Stomps Mud Hole In Obama (caseyhendrickson.wordpress.com)
• Ballsy Statement from Congressman Joe Walsh Calling Obama Out (thegabriellahoffman.com)

We’re Still Here?

Tags

"the hat", Beatrice, environment, global warming, GOP, Humor, Israel, Middle East, Mitch Daniels, Palestine, rapture, religion, Tim Pawlenty, tornadoes, weather

Photo credit: Adam Baron

Well, thankfully, we took lawn chairs. I mean Saturday for the Rapture. We were up on the hill, standing, and then sitting. Checking the watch. We clasped hands at :30 seconds and counting. And then. . . N O T H I N G.

At first, utter terror grabbed my heart. Oh no, was there some bureaucratic snafu? Had our names been left off by some angelic error? I commenced to clacking my ruby-red shoes again and again. To no avail.

We wondered, should we run back to the house and get in the basement? But all was eerily quiet and well, you might even say serene. No shaking, no erupting cacophony of earth-splitting horrors.

Finally, dejectedly, we wandered back to the house, flipped on the TV and found everything pretty much the same.

“Damn it!” the Contrarian exclaimed.

“What?”

“We missed the Preakness. Wonder who won?” he muttered.

“I can top that,” I intoned.

“How’s that?”

“On Monday, I’m back to what is increasingly as boring as paint drying–the GOP field of candidates!” I sighed.

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No doubt the poor people of Joplin, MO thought the Rapture might have been just delayed as they saw their town torn apart by a killer tornado yesterday. These monster storms are taking a toll across the country, and one has to go back to pre-1950 times to find these kind of death tolls. That means the storms are more ferocious, since warning systems and structures are certainly much better today. But there ain’t no global warming of course. No that is not possible.

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Does anyone care that Mitch Daniels is out and Tim Pawlenty is in? It’s really hard to. Theories abound as to why the “better?” candidates are opting out and the idiots are taking center stage. The most likely scenario is that they figure that Obama is nearly a sure bet. Re-focus on 2016. Maybe. If so, it promises to be a yawner except for the humor factor if Bachmann and Palin, join the other loonies Cain, Santorum, and Gingrich. Even then, it’s hard to get enthused. Or maybe I’m just off my game today. **shrug**

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Proof that I am sane and the world is crazy? One need go no further than a few weeks ago when I named the hat worn by Princess Beatrice at the William and Kate wedding as the “Bullwinkle Hat.”

Said “hat” sold on Ebay for $130,000 big ones. Need I say more?  

Truly, the more I look, the easier it is to find evidence that I am one of the few remaining sane humans on this planet.

Newt Gingrich. Need I say more?

I can go on like this all day. I deserve some kind of recognition for my ability to retain my mind in good working order when faced with this kind of insanity provoking nuttery. I do.

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I confess to not understanding all the intricacies of the Middle East peace process. But over the years, my sympathies have shifted more to the Palestinian side of things. I certainly don’t like Hamas’s tactics, but I think the Palestinians have a better claim on the land than do the Israelis. Fair reading of the Bible must leave a person with a certain amount of “well that’s a convenient way to tell the story and justify war and genocide isn’t it” feeling in the end.

Looking back, it was probably a very bad idea to create the state of Israel. And given history, Jerusalem, seems to me, to be fairly an “international” city of three religions. Saying all that, realities are what they are.

I suspect that those who really are in the know, know that Obama’s  speech on the peace process were carefully crafted and struck just the right note. They are entirely in line with European allies conclusions on the matter.

How do you feel about the situation?

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What’s on the stove? Liver and Onions, carrots, salad

 

 

Hang ‘EM I Say!

Tags

Iowa, The Contrarian, VA, weather

More things are wrong than right, so I’m ranting. And you’re gonna listen, okay?

Bureaucratic bull crap. Weather. Husbands who whine. Panting dogs. Having to put a freakin’ meal on the table every day. Mud. Rain. Gov’ment.

Enough?

Just beginning.

We have got a good three inches in the past two days. I’m so tired of calling people and cancelling stuff I could scream. It ain’t like I live in the Morocco or the sub-continent of Asia. I live in freakin’ Merika, the old red-white-blue wavy thing. I should not have a road that turns into a mud slide.

I should not be living in a state that has decided that the monsoons are the best kept secret of southeast Asia and they deserve their own. It now rains here all of June and July with regularity. I did not move to the Northwest for a REASON. This is simply wrong. Try being cooped up for hours on end with two smelly dogs and four cats and a whiny husband. And all but the human think it’s my fault.

I’m always in favor of government programs, but I have a request. COULD YOU STOOGES HIRE SOMETHING ABOVE THE LEVEL OF IMBECILE TO RUN THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF THE OPERATION?

The Contrarian has been trying for a month now to make his SCHEDULED appointment at the VA. Oh but no, you can’t just willy nilly make an appointment. We’ve been FLAGGED. We haven’t completed our yearly MEANS test. The fact that they did not send it–why mere extraneous fluffery.

A means test asks what your income and holdings are, to determine how much of anything of your bill you should pay. For years we paid nothing. All the sudden we have to pay. We have to pay because we are land rich. The land (inherited) is where  we have our poor hovel of a home on. So we are wealthy although of course we have dial up, never had  a cell phone, no plasma screen, one operating raggedy vehicle, and shop at the Salvation Army for clothes.

But we have land. Apparently the feds think that we can cut off a few feet at a time and sell it to pay “our share” of our yearly VA bills. Since our income is almost solely derived from the gov’ment in the form of SS, they freakin’ know what we make. But of course, the left hand doesn’t know. . . .well you know the ending of that.

So, they send us a means test, and we I, fill the thing out and I put it in the mail the second week or so of June. We get a notice that we are to call on July 2 to make an appointment. No explanation why we must wait. But we do, and I call, and glory be, the sods are on VACATION! Guess they don’t flag their own freakin’ appointment calendars.

We are advised of course, that if this is an emergency, to “hang up and call 911.” Oh thanks so very much moronic team of intellectual ineptitude. I would rather make an appointment and bring in the body next week at the scheduled time if you don’t mind. Just have a body bag at the ready so we don’t upset the living patients when I bring him in.

So we call Monday. STILL on vacation. Yeah the feds take such good care of themselves. So today the Contrarian calls. He reaches the holding area, and TWICE after ten minutes is summarily disconnected. They always apologize profusely but this is built into the system and WE ALL KNOW IT.

He leaves a message finally on voice mail. After FOUR hours, he calls again. The alleged human on the other end, says, “hey, we haven’t received your means test, bud. No can set appointment!”

The Contrarian responds, “Well fine, then give me an extension on my meds until you get that straightened out.”

“NO can do amigo. No means test, you don’t officially exist!”

I hear the fine exploding brain cells going on at this point. He is sent to the emergency pill giver. VOICE MAIL!!!

She returns the call within an hour. “She starts the whole crap again–“We’ll send you a new means test Mr. Peyton.”

“NO, NO, NO,” he screams. The mail is NOT that slow. She puts him on hold. Returns in moments.

“Ah, we found it Mr. Peyton. It ‘just’ arrived.”

“What’s the postmark?”

“June 28.”

“THEN IT FREAKIN’ DID NOT JUST ARRIVE!”

“I’ll enter it into the system, Mr. Peyton, and you can call tomorrow for an appointment.”

Yeah, and cows will be flying by the window too. You wanna bet that that will go smoothly?

Did I mention that it rains every five minutes?

I’m going to take a nap. Oh joy, off to battle the mosquitoes. They apparently think this is a good place to COME IN OUT OF THE RAIN!!!

Is It Gonna Rain?

Tags

essay, Humor, meteorology, satire, weather

Okay, I’m as excited as the next gal about new technology. I mean, the wonders of IPhone and IPad and all those apps? I mean, how do they work? It’s well beyond me to fathom but I like ’em.

I marvel at the fact that I can record multiple shows at one time, watch another and call them up at will. (Actually I can’t–ours blew a metaphorical fuse today, and I’ve gotta stop at the Best Buy and get another one of these wonders on my way to a meeting later today). But you get the picture–I am just all agog at the things that can be done these days.

Now if they would only get me a transporter going and a replicator, I’d been in heaven, again metaphorically speaking.

Now weather. That I think bears more analysis. I remember, being almost as old as dirt now, when weather “forecasting” was akin to walking outside and taking a look. Oh sure, the “weatherman” or “weather-girl” (there being no such thing as a weather-woman) just went up on a hill and got a better look.

They, in their wisdom or ability to correctly see, would tell us at 6pm on Monday, what it was likely to be like on Tuesday. Now, perhaps they were lazier than going up onto a hill. Most of my life, our weather came in from the west so I guess it made sense to call over to a western town and ask them what the weather was like–it could fairly be presumed that tomorrow that is what we would enjoy.

Course, they were wrong a huge amount of the time, to the point that nobody really depended on them anyway. It was just a good guess, slightly better than stickin’ your nose our yourself.

So far so good.

But then. Technology started seeping into weather divination and well, things have never been the same. First they started calling themselves meteorologists, all high and mighty. They actually went to college and studied this crap, instead of being the slightly dull (can’t broadcast the news but still looks good on camera if a  dude, or the girl who was queen of the Homecoming in town and was still perky though again, unable to read the news competently).

So they started to throw their weight around and use a lotta words like barometric pressure and lows and highs, and well, it got worse until today we got the El Nino or La Nina, all of which mysteriously affects the weather in Iowa.

And instead of telling me about what the weather will be like tomorrow, they started telling me about two days later, then three, and then, horror of horrors, a week! And guess what?

They got wronger and wronger, or more wrong and more wrong, if you are a stickler for proper niceties. And this, I claim is causing a lot of unnecessary depression throughout the land.

Yes, people like me, actually make plans based on what they tell me is going to happen. And then they are wrong, and I’ve wasted time and sometimes money just because they are so arrogant in telling me what they know, is just so much smoke and mirror guesswork.

Worse, people spend more money making contingent plans, in case the 20% chance of rain turns up a few notches to 80% by the night before. And then, of course, it doesn’t rain, and you’ve wasted a lot of time and trouble for nothing.

I don’t even understand this 20% crap in the first place. Is it a 20% chance that it will rain everywhere, or only in 20% of the listening area? Come on, it’s about time to come clean here. Now the Contrarian says that they are getting it more wrong more often, and he claims that that is because that the bigger and better technology gives them a “bigger” viewing audience in terms of space, so they gotta predict over larger land masses than before.

Could be.

And what’s even worse? As if anything could be. The damn dinks actually seem that they are having a good time while telling me that my weekend is ruined for planting or what I did plant is gonna freeze (oops another of those bizarro frosts in July!), or any manner of really depressing information that I don’t wanna hear.

And they love it. The fools in Cedar Rapids are rabid about the subject. Joe and Kai and some nerdy 13 year old just can’t wait for more air time, and break into my calm television viewing, to remind me for the hundredth time to “seek cover in a basement, or bathroom or hallway, away from windows (no chit!).” And it’s always “immediately!” too.

And they stay on the air like that for 45 precious ( of mine that is ) minutes, and there I went and lost another episode of Lost to their crap, and it hasn’t rained a drop here! Oh and then they tell me, in some crawl at around ten in the morning the next day. that the episode will be rerun tonight at one in the morning, thank you very much. Well thank god for Tivo! No wait, I have to get a new one!

So, this all ends up making me depressed about next Monday, and it’s only Tuesday before, and probably Monday’s lousy weather won’t even happen, so I’ve wasted a grump on nothing, and don’t that make you feel slightly S T U P I D?

And Joe is grinnin’ and saying “gotcha” under his breath. Yeah, well I think they all just oughta shut the zip zip up and I’ll go back to lookin’ out the window to determine the weather, as God no doubt intended in the first place.

Just sayin’.

I Can Play That Game Too

Tags

Books, Chuck Grassley, Jeff Sessions, John McEnroe, Johnny Depp, Michael Jackson, prose, Rafael Nadal, retreats, Roger Federer, Sonia Sotomayor, weather

It doesn’t happen that often, but today, after running through well over one hundred blogs, I’ve still seen nothing to awakens an idea in my magnificent brain to write about. The last one, a snotty little offering from our dearest friend Randal, at that oh so smarmy Frenchy sounded blog l’ennui melodieux, well, it gave me the idea.

If you go over, and go you should, you’ll find a nice little post that says and means essentially nothing, but is a pleasant enough stringing of words, much like poetry, that can mean what you want it to. I shrugged, and thought, well why the hell not. I can string with the best of them.

I once upon a time thought Randal was just “too deep” for me, but then, he reads my blog, so that killed that idea. I finally realized he was just putting it over on us with his fancy words. And hey, nobody can claim Randal ain’t read, cuz he is. I think it’s like having your cranium shook a bit each day or two, knocks the dust down and all those synapses snap back into place, and you’re ready once more for molecular physics. Quarks anyone?

There seems to be no abatement in the Michael Jackson phenom, and that’s starting to be a problem in the meadow. The Contrarian is threatening to write off forever whole networks if they don’t stop, and no amount of explaining that “THEY DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK” seems to sink in. I just threw in this comment, cuz then I can list MJ as a tag and up my readership some more. I have 5,000 hits on Sunday. They are really tracking everything I say these days about MJ and Depp, Johnny that is. Wow, now I can add him too. Those are the search leaders these days, and you know how much time I spend talking about either of them.

I am pained a good deal looking around at the sky. I keep figuring that something is about to happen, given that the temperature more closely resembles like late September than freakin’ July. I mean we are looking at a high of 73 tomorrow. The garden simply groans in confusion. You can hear it if you listen carefully. It’s various components don’t know whether to set fruit or just give up in disgust. We’re about to see I guess how strong the drive to reproduce is.

I have been watching the Sonia Sotomayor hearings a bit today. The judge seems to be holding her own quite well, as the idiot likes of Sessions and a few others look foolish by comparison. I understand that Sessions some years ago was appointed to a federal judgeship but was not confirmed. I think he’s a mean spirited guy, but then most Republicans are these days. Our own Chuckie cheese Grassley says he’s “troubled” by her empathy statements. But oddly, he wasn’t troubled when Alito said much the same during his confirmation hearings. Grassley, agrees that he’s being a bit inconsistent. Hard to toe the Republican line when your past keeps contradicting you.

I usually watch Wimbledon every year. I like tennis, though I loathe John McEnroe. But if I turn down the sound I can handle it. Which brings to mind, why do we reward idiot nasty people with long term “commentator” contracts? Anyway, I didn’t watch this year because my dog in the race, Rafael Nadal, was out with an injury. Isn’t that a perfectly lovely name? Rafael? Ahhh, just sublime. Anyway, Federer, Roger has both a pedantic name and a brow ridge akin to Neanderthal origins. Rafael, has as they say a “body to die for.”

I do tend to choose my favorites in that disgustingly superficial way. I’m not ashamed of it. I mean isn’t that obvious? Johnny Depp is beyond gorgeous. I have been known to root for some not so gorgeous types. I was a real fan of Johnny McKenzie of the Boston Bruins a few dozen years ago. And he was how can you say it nicely? Dog butt ugly comes to mind, but don’t quote me.

God and me are doin’ find. Thanks for asking. I’m getting the chance to join that education program at my church after all. They insist that they have scholarships and so I’m blessed indeed. I’m reading a new book, another to review. Hopefully, unless I come across another “must have” I’ll read a few of my own collection and then enjoy some from our church library. Now we do have a selection that makes the average biblical study nut like me just salivate. I can hardly wait.

I was over at FranIAm’s blog yesterday, and she was just back from a retreat. I’m, embarrassed to say how long its been since I’ve been on any kind of one. We have a retreat center that is closer to me than my church, so I really am going to do that soon. She’s another blog that should be visited regularly. I do, but don’t always comment.

Speaking of which, it sure would be nice if that feature, commenting, were available within the reader, without bringing up the page. Easier for me at least. Oh and hit that Westminster button now and again if you have the time. I got a whopping 8 points so far. Need 50 for a book! lol…okay here’s hoping for Christmas?  I guess I should have thrown in a recipe to be complete, but hey, we can’t have everything.

So Randal, I know it’s not as elegant as yours, but did I do this streaming bouncing off the wall prose okay? It’s the best I can do on short notice. Have a superb day folks.

Water is the Issue

Tags

Iowa, plumbing, water, weather

If any element has defined my life in the last twelve months, it would be water. As many of you remember, last spring, we got so much rain that two of our cities were flooded in huge part, and so much rain fell on farmland as to make the planting late and fairly unproductive. Our garden was worthless in the end, most things died in July from too much of the wet stuff.

Again, in the depths of this vicious cold spell, water is ever on our minds. Or the lack of it. For it seems that that is what we are facing now. Oh, not to worry. It sounds worse than it is, but it’s hardly a delightful experience we are now having. The Contrarian has said that at least he can get me to the bus station should I decide to leave him. Said in jest I must emphasize.

As the temperature finally climbed to within a few degrees of zero, it became time to see what the basement held for us in regards water. There was no point in attempting the feat early in the morning since temperatures were registering below -20.

Of course, as you might expect, no water was forthcoming when the appropriate widget was turned. The Contrarian quickly set up a space heater to thaw the valve. Finally, that turned, and low and behold, water came forth, but not from the spigot as one would hope, but from the sides of the valve where it had split and frozen.

So much for worrying about the other pipes, we were going no where fast in the water department. Given the temperatures, there was no question of trying to see whether we could get out. Getting stuck and having to walk back to the house was not a sane idea.

So we waited. This morning dawned with temperatures nearly 18 degrees above the evil zero. Alas, the hose from the basement, had frozen and not recovered in the basement. Eventually that was brought up and placed in front of the stove to thaw, all the while tipping it to the basement every so often to drain water rather than let it puddle on the carpet. (You should assume that our carpet is a mess generally from dogs, cats, wood and the like.)

Meanwhile, Parker decided it was time to try the lane. I had little if any hope that this would be profitable. But shocking as it was, he made it and returned with the mail of several days.  Not long after, he set off for Walker and the UBC hardware/lumberyard. (UBC stands for You Been Cheated, locally, for obvious reasons. A captive audience usually pays top dollar or drives another 20 miles to a fairer place.)

He returned with a bag full of goodies, only a plumber would love. Of course, plumbers no longer do this kind of work, they are all applying for journalist credentials to report on foreign wars. Soon a hose was connected up and praise the Lord, water came forth. All with a bright new shiny sprayer attachment. Now we have nice water at the top of the basement stairs all ready to fill any and all large containers.

Whoopie! We can flush with abandon. No baths though, unless one is very determined to heat a lot of water on the stove. But if I had to choose, I’d choose flushing ability over not stinking. At times like this, one can only imagine how our ancestors managed without electricity or indoor plumbing.

The wind has now picked up substantially, and the snow is beginning to blow. The Contrarian may have gotten out just in time. We may be snowed in by the morrow. One gets numb to the variety of mishaps that can occur. But we feel a certain blessing. We do have running water, just now through the usual orifices of sink spigots and such.

The issue is that once the Contrarian attempts the removal of the valve and replacement, he is committed. Once off, it’s off for good, and if he can’t get the new one in place, we will have no water again. So there is some trepidation at beginning this adventure. Especially at this juncture with the wind having come up so strongly. Better to wait until tomorrow, see if we are still free to leave the land for travel or not. Only then, is it safe to begin the process.

It’s tiresome and I have to admit, I’m not thinking I would have made a very good pioneer woman. I rather enjoy my creature comforts, at least those I have come to feel essential to my existence. I plainly like running water that is both hot and cold. I don’t think I would care to live without those conveniences. A couple of days has already been too long. I guess I am a bit of a pampered pet, accustomed to water on demand.

So that’s how things stand as of now. It’s fairly warm again indoors, and we have water. I’ve noticed that I have taken a distinct dislike to wind. Perhaps I’m beginning to feel the same about water. It’s getting to be a pain in the arse. Hope you are faring better this winter. I’m rather tired of the whole thing myself.