Seattle has snow, and hills, and you do not even want to think about Tacoma, which has San Francisco type hilly streets. There are direly scary clips of Seattle drivers. Including a snowplow pushing a city bus up a hill at reckless speed… (wince).
We are snowless here, but we are cold. We’ll be in the teens and single digits a lot this week, with snow yet to come, but it missed us last night. Probably the ski resort is happy, though.
We are nearly done on the basement remodel—we have worked hard on that and I am writing hard to make up hours spent on the remodel, all of which means, well, I should post more often.
The PT and I are doing very, very well. I was able to go out and mulch the roses, and if you conjure a delicate waltz through the garden, let me say the bags of mulch were a) wet, making them about 35-40 lbs; and b)frozen, which meant I had to hammer them to get them apart, but our roses will now sleep sound. The ice is back on the pond, after being so warm (above 40) that the poor koi were beginning to stir, which is-not-good when you have a bitter freeze coming. I can see them through the ice, and they look to be settling again.
Otherwise, we have not done a thing but write and paint (walls) and carry boxes. I wish all of you were near enough to come raid our garage. We are purging a lot of books and we have about given up on a garage sale: we’re just going to invite people in to carry off what they want, leave a tip if they like, and take it away.
The house—well, if you’ve seen the Swamp on Mash, you get the picture. We clean up areas, but the tide of displaced boxes and books just overwhelms it.
WE are, however, within striking distance of order in the basement main room and library. The OTHER side of the basement awaits, but will not be so disruptive of the rest of the house as this has been. It was packed to the gills with junk (read: furniture that no longer fits, boxes of craft stuff, books, cooking items, and this in a near windowless murk. It is now sunny with basement window-wells, has a fake travertine floor, pale green walls, two mirrored closets for craft stuff, an electric fireplace (from upstairs) inbuilt, and Jane’s bedroom telly repurposed for the craft and exercise area we are making. The library is all stacked in the exercise area, and will be the next to become green and modern (instead of hideous striped floral wallpaper and painted cinderblock.) It will acquire a closet and better lighting, and then get all its bookcases back stripped of books we no longer need, primarily out-dated reference books.
So progress marches on. And the PT continues. From limping and miserable, I am now able to wrestle frozen bags of mulch and haul boxes of books. Yay me! And Jane—Jane’s worth a second carpenter, or rather plasterer and painter, which are not Scott’s favorite things to do. I try to do all the cleanup I can and things like the roses, because nobody wants me to plaster. 😉 For good reason.
Hope you all are safe from the weather and having a good new year.
In high contrast to the polar vortex, we are still having unseasonably warm, spring-like temps here. (I was shirtless, earlier, doing stuff around the apt.) Yes, it’s going from chilly nights to warm days, and it’s supposed to stay like this through mid-week or the end of the week, and then go back to 40’s or so. This mild weather is not unheard of, but in January and February, it’s probably rare, or was. (I should go look up historical data to see trends.) But this winter overall has felt like one of the mildest I’ve ever seen here. — This is not to refute global warming and human-made influence on the weather, but rather to say, wow, we can go to wilder extremes now. And I expect a hot summer here. Eek. — Wishing everyone northward a good week and safety in the winter weather.
It’s good to know I’m not the only one still battling a mess. The Great Reshuffle of boxes in my apartment has meant I am still going through things to find what’s there and unpack, repack, get ready for giving away or selling things; and oh boy, do I still have stuff in the storage space to go through. Sigh. But hey, there’s pretty good progress in the stuff in the apartment. More and more, it looks human-livable, civilized, even vaguely organized. (I am due to clean house again, and within less than four months, I’m having to replace LED and track light spots in my kitchen. Man, light bulb manufacturers these days must be happy, making a profit. Glad I’d ordered spares, but at this rate, I’ll need spares for the spares sooner than I would have ever thought. Wow.
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I don’t get people. I just watched a very sweet short film, «Crevette,» (Shrimp) about a boy’s first crush on a girl and his big brother’s reactions. It’s in French with English subtitles. And danged if some guy in the comments didn’t fuss that he thanked them for English subtitles, given how thousands of people speak English. I replied back that sure they do, but how would he feel if someone said that to him that way if he hadn’t included subtitles for a film in English? Fairly sure the guy won’t get it. I think he’ll think he was being polite, nice, thanking them, when really, he was being prejudiced towards English-only, and probably doesn’t realize how rare being monolingual is. — My French is doing a bit better, but I was glad for the subtitles to catch what I missed, in what was perfectly normal standard French at normal speaking speed, with several speakers with good French. (I had to laugh: They translated a couple of things loosely, for the intended meaning, and one was some nickname for Uncle in French, which was translated as “Nunky” in English. I had to think about that one; never called an uncle, Nunky, even though I’m also aware of the “Nunkle” bit in Shakespeare for, “an uncle.” (The same reason we have the name Ned and a few others with N, from Middle English.
Anyway, I thought the film about 30 min. long, was cute and poignant, a short story on film. It manages to get across its points very well, both the serious, the humorous, and the romantic and coming-of-age bits for both brothers and the girlfriends. 🙂
YouTube’s algorithm is so oddball. Some of the things it thinks are “related” or recommended, in relation to some topics just go off into various weird corners of the interwebz. Sometimes really not what I was prepared to see/hear. Other times fine. A few times…I have to wonder what some people use for judgment, discernment. But most of the time, fine.
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My cats _may_ have declared a truce in no longer considering the bed as sacred, neutral territory to share. For now, they are sharing it again. I hope that lasts. I don’t know what triggered the idea that it was only for either one and not both, but that has been going on for months now. I prefer them to share the bed as friendly and safe and welcome for both cats, no favoritism, just sharing.
Cats are so weird. I love ’em.
If you’re looking for a sweet short film I recommend “Bao”, which I see is up for an Oscar [Written and directed by Domee Shi]. I ran into it on a dvd of Pixar shorts (vol. 3 I believe)but I’m sure its all over the net. And like a lot of Pixar animation it doesn’t really have subtitles because it doesn’t really have dialogue.
In the last 34 hrs we’ve had a skiff of snow, the first all season, but it’s not supposed to stay.
Just enough to turn drivers into idiots.
The new hedgehog (Thistle) and I are still coming to an accommodation. She still doesn’t like me much and I haven’t found any foodstuff that really floats her boat. She doesn’t bite, but I’ve gotten peed on more than chance would indicate.
Snow was a possibility rainy-side’s Bridgetown, Sunday night and Monday. Guess it happened last night in the Coast Range, and maybe above 1,000′ in town, but here at 200′ I just saw a handful of flakes a couple times.
If it’s “off” that’d be good. I’m due at a clinic for a lumbar spine injection Tuesday at 11. I won’t be able to drive home, and my sister isn’t experienced. That’s gotta be a real serious needle!
Ooops, time to change costume!
We had black ice on top of Haleakala, but surprisingly, no snow; it had rained a good chunk of last week, so the lack of snow was unexpected, as it was chilly for these promiscuous parts. We are definitely into the rainy season now, but though we had more than usual rain over the summer, we will have less rain during the ‘wet’. Nonetheless, the fig tree is figging, and my Gros Michel banana tree is throwing its first flower spike which will hopefully eventually become bananas.
The groomer who previously did Junior’s lion cut has apparently gone out of business, so I need to track down someone who can give him his shave and a haircut, two bits. The Rasta look is not a good one for him, nor comfortable.
We were lucky here in central MD and didn’t get the snow that the Midwest and New England got; just a couple of different snowfalls that only totalled about 2 inches. We can drive over that and didn’t even have to crank up the snow blower. And today it’s a lovely sunny 50 degree (F) day. Fortunately the propane truck showed up today; when we heard him on the driveway I dashed out to check the level in the tank and it was down to 10%. If we have another severe cold snap like last week’s I’ll keep a closer eye on it. Bad things happen if air gets into the system; I suspect oxygen mixed with propane would be a bad thing in the tank and the gas line.
It’ll warm up here into the low 70’s/40’s, and then go back down into the 40’s/teens. Seems like we’re running about 8-10 day cycles of warming and cooling. We’re heading for another cold snap tomorrow. It’s been mostly dry. We’re (Tx panhandle) at the same latitude as Casablanca, Morocco, so not so cold as the upper tier, but it gets dang windy here in the flatlands(as we say, “Ain’t but one fence between us and Canada, and it’s down. . .”) and we’ve had wind chills into the minuses at some points. (I know I’m preaching to the choir to you two, CJ.) I would so love a post from Jane giving a pictorial tour of the completed portions of the reno, or at least selected highlights . . . showcase all your hard work!
“Nothing between here and the North Pole but barb-wire fences” is what I heard. And we know how well those stop wind….
(Don’t complain too loudly – it only made it to 55 in my part of L.A. yesterday – without rain, but there were clouds in the morning.)
Grrowl. — Some time in the last couple of months, when I visited a dictionary site, of all things, (The Collins online English dictionary, I think) — It tried (and succeeded) in downloading and installing “Mac Cleaner Pro” on my Mac, which is a scam/malware program to try to scare/ nag you into buying their program. — I had thought I’d deleted it all successfully, but no, not. — Discovered this today when first a new little nagging window popped up in my browser, trying to get me to upgrade / buy the thing, when I knew I hadn’t done anything / been anywhere odd.Then another odd behavior when I googled and checked one link for removal instructions. Oh, joy. Not. — So I have bought and am running a new/different Mac antivirus program than what I had used before. This one was recommended via MacWorld (online magazine version of former in-print mag).
Well, we’ll see. So far, it has found several files left wandering around with obvious filename ties to the malware. Those have been quarantined and deleted.
Really hoping it doesn’t Quarantine a critical file for the macOS, and that, once done, I’ll once again be clean and virus-free.
(Yes, I am sure it was from a dictionary site; I did see when it attempted that. Thought I’d got it entirely at the time. Sigh.
It’s -43C here, this morning. -52C wind chill. The sky is bright and beautiful, lit up with suspended sparkles of ice. The sun is being followed by intensely bright sun dogs. It’s cold, but it’s so very beautiful, here in the middle of the Canadian Great Plains.
-43°C – seriously?! (I mean that in a nice way!) How on Earth do you cope with/survive that? Though in Melbourne, Australia, it got to +43°C on 26 January – I don’t know which extreme is worse! It only gets to near 0°C here in winter, and I find that uncomfortable enough!
Dear CJ when the weather is warmer and if you still want people to “carry off” unwanted accumulation (books) I am close enough. I think you have my email/contact info so please feel free to let me know. On another note, you sure are a tough lady, getting out there with the roses in February! Take care…
You will be welcome. We have a ton.
It’s in the mid-50s in L.A. – colder than west Texas at a much higher altitude – but it isn’t raining for the next couple of days.
Hey, send some to us, a long way south (and west).
We’re having a very, very hot summer, with rolling heatwaves, including some days well into the 40s (ºC that is). Our a/c’s are having a hard time with inside temps 30C or more at the worst.
I recommend letting that piece of the polar vortex go, before it’s momma shows up looking for it lol
Weather over Seattle way looks rather testy, with snow and very icy temperatures. Please stay warm and safe over there!
Even here, rainyside, s’posed to get into teens overnight. I’ve thrown tarps over my pots of bulbs. I have seen sun and flakes today, but also all my grass too. 😉
It didn’t! 25F or so. Still freezing, but a world of difference from 18F to the plants. One of the tarps blew up, so that was a good thing. Still, it also hasn’t been “for days”, as in ’16-’17.
-43°C? Shudder. Of course, being American, I had to do a conversion. (I need to re-memorize the conversions to and from.) +43°C is something I’ve experienced, or close enough to it, 109.4°F. I don’t like temps staying over 100, which sends our nighttime lows into the 80’s, but (with a/c) that’s somewhat manageable. (Of course, I may not think so if it gets over 100 again this summer for a week, like it has done twice before in my memory, both since 2005. The lowest temp I’ve personally experienced was around 12°F, which was freaking cold, IMHO.
We had another brief dip into seasonal temps here, but now it’s headed back to spring-like weather for another few days. And if I’m reading right, the average temps for Houston, as reported by one site, then we have been above average off and on half of January and February, and expected to stay so into March…so we may have an early spring and early summer indeed. (It used to be that Easter was the last hurrah for any possible frost here.) We haven’t had temps below freezing much at all this winter. This summer could be rough.
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French Question: My Larousse dictionary doesn’t want to translate “strawberry blond” into anything likely to make much sense in French. (I feel fairly sure that “fraise blond(e),” the literal translation as reported by Google Translate, would not say anything sensible to a francophone unless they also speak English and know the English term.) Google Translate didn’t know what to do with “auburn” either. I discovered it gets finicky about red-haired, depending on masculine or feminine, in a way a French speaker would understand as the same thing, but an English speaker would look at that and would not know why it looks so different. It didn’t know what to make of the simple English word, “redhead,” either (it spits out redhead and auburn instead of anything French). I didn’t try “ginger.” It gives “fille rousse” for the girls and “garçon avec des cheveux roux” for its translation attempts, as opposed to “garçon roux.” (Specifying “avec des cheveux” there is unnecessary in French, since there are the basic color words for red hair, brown hair, and blond hair.
So I’m curious how people would translate “strawberry blond” into French. — It’s a very pale red-haired description, something like the redhead version of a platinum blond or “tow-headed” or white-blond. — I would guess the nearest would be “roux clair” and “rousse claire,” or perhaps pâle instead of clair(e).
No need for a conversion down there. By a quirk of how the equation works: -40°C = -40°F !
With our larger vocabulary, translating into French from English can sometimes be like trying to put a square peg into a round hole.
Tomorrow our high is 63F and our low is 25F. Going to be like that all week. Thurs predicted high of 72F and low of 37F.
Thank you CJ! On another note weather-wise, my daughter and I spent Christmas in the Interior of Alaska in 2012, when we landed the temps dropped to 30 below zero (F) then for two weeks went as low as -58 (F) and hovering in the -45 degree range all the while we are traveling over 100 miles one way to visit family. My daughter’s young Sheeba Inu spent very little time doing his business out there but was a true sport about it. I will say that at those temperatures the atmosphere is just breathtaking (no pun intended though true) with the sheer and stark mountain vistas that it reminded me why I actually love and miss Alaska in winter! The day we flew out of Fairbanks it warmed up to -10 (an Alaskan heat-wave after the extremes.) We had -4 here on Saturday and some new snow so I enjoyed walking in the crisp, fresh morning spotting all the new critter tracks. Looks like we are in for some more serious snowfall after last night so stay warm and safe out there – it is forecast to move across the country.
Skiing down Haleakala and Polipoli? It’d be a wonder that anybody HAD skis!
Generally, they bring up innertubes and boogie boards to do their sliding. You have to be careful to stop before you run out of snow, as lava isn’t very forgiving. Last couple of days going to any Hawaiian summit was contraindicated, because they were getting 60+ mph gusts; Mauna Kea was buttoned up and telescope personnel were down in Hilo because of 120 mph gusts. We were only getting lashed with rain and 50 mph winds. Our tame astrophysicist took and posted a wide angle shot of Haleakala with its cover of snow.
eta: I was wrong about the high gusts on the Big Island: Mauna Kea reported a 191 mph gust!