weather

Love’s Pure Light

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments

All is calm, all is bright.

I just got home after spending Christmas Eve with my folks. It was good. It was all good.

After dinner, but before my son arrived, I came back home to get gifts, check on the dogs, and enjoy a few moments alone. I sat under the tree (note the spiffy new Yak-Traks on my boots – I’m set for the hill now!) – it was a nice interlude – enjoying the calm before the storm of family frivolity – and the potential for drama.

As usual, I and everyone else have been running at 90 mph to get to this point – the point where you can just sit and take it all in.

My son arrived safely from Charlotte (I had fretted). I teased my brother and bonded some more with my sister-in-law. My great-nephews (sheesh, how can I be this old?) are just too cute. My nephew’s wife is ready to produce a baby boy any second. My dad, He-Who-Hates-Christmas, was positively jolly. My mom was exhausted and we managed to make her sit down and just be still. My son’s socks were knocked off by his grandfather’s gift. And did I mention my son brought hand-made truffles, a beautiful wine, and enough foie gras to keep me fat for a year? No? Well, he did. He also brought the puppies. Babette isn’t thrilled, but they are.

No drama this Christmas. All is calm.

Someday I'm going to have a camera that can handle this kind of shot.

Santa was very good to me. Santa is always very good to me.

As I walked back home, the promised snow was falling. I could see the twinkle lights in my kitchen window and the light shining from my son’s bedroom. All is bright.

We may or may not have a snow storm. The gentle flakes of this evening may be a snow-in tomorrow. And that’s fine too. I don’t have to go anywhere, I don’t want to go anywhere. All my people are safe and warm. Come Tuesday, HMO’Keefe will be here and I will have a second Christmas.

I am so blessed. I hope you are too. And may your night be silent while the snow falls and children dream.

Snow Day at Grandma’s

/ wvfurandroot / 5 Comments

As I mentioned, my mom is now operating a doggie daycare for the Beautiful Babette.  Between one thing and another, I went to work yesterday, but Babette stayed in my house.  MY HOUSE.  Not Grandma’s.  NOT GRANDMA’S. 

Today, she wasn’t having any of that nonsense. 

I opened the door and off she went – headfirst into snow deeper than she is tall.  She soon figured out how to scamper across the surface of the snow (more or less) about the time I figured out how to shoot video on the phone.  In trying to get the video from the phone to Youtube, we lost the last few seconds, the quality grossly degraded, etc. etc. etc.  But I’m tickled. My first video.  Cecilia B. DeMille is born.

Babette was most certainly ready for her close-up, but only because I was taking far too long to get Grandma’s door open.

[So there was all sorts of foolishness with the video being sideways, a format I couldn’t work with, etc. etc.  I’ve got another learning curve to tackle.]

Hoo Boy! Guess what Santa’s bringing me?

/ wvfurandroot / 6 Comments

Fa La la!

This year I’m getting brakes for Christmas.  It’s not quite a lump of coal, but it feels like it. 

One of the problems of driving an aging car is that these things happen; and these things happen at the most inconvenient times.

The other day the brakes felt wooshy jittery and I suspected that the mechanic and I would be having a date soon.  I prayed, loudly, with incense and much lamentation, for our date to occur in January.

No such luck. 

We’re having uncommon snow and cold this December with a storm expected in later tonight.  My inner adult sqaubbled with my inner child and persuaded her that the pleasure of working brakes was indeed greater than the pleasure of giving gifts.  It’s ever so nice to be able to stop the car especially when icy roads send it into a spin.

I can’t remember what it was last year, but early December found me plunking down a significant amount of cash for some sort of car repair.  Perhaps this is a new holiday tradition.

Car repairs seem to arrive in my life when I can least afford them. One year, I took the broken regularator from a 1980 Honda Accord, painted it pink, slapped a flower decal on it, hung it from a green card and told my mother it was her Mother’s Day gift.  She was amused.

We’ll see what she thinks of decopauged book ends made of brake rotors.  On second thought, they would make a better gift for my dad.  Perhaps Mom will like placemats made out of worn out brake pads.  (What do brake pads look like?  Coasters, maybe? Dresser doily?)

Fa La La!

[Dear Santa, next year I want a new Subaru.]

Edited to add:  I went and picked up the car.  Paid heaps of money.  And then…AND THEN caused quite a stir when I asked for my rotors.  “Your what, ma’am?”  I want my rotors.  “Um, sure.”  Next thing I know the manager arrives asking me what he can do to help.  I tell him nothing that I’m fine.  “I thought there was a problem.”  Um, no.  I don’t thinks so.  “You were asking about your rotors?”  Yes, I want them.  I’m going to paint them a glossy black, paint my father’s monogram on them, and give them to him for Christmas.  “Oh.”

Big storm this weekend?

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

Down in this part of the state we usually miss all or most of the winter storms that streak across the nation.  While I will complain bitterly if it turns out to be a cold, snowy winter, the first real storm of the season is always exciting. 

I’m uncommonly fond of Chris Bailey’s blog over at WSAZ.  I’ve been checking in frequently to see if he’s ready to offer an estimate of how much snow, if any, we’re going to get with the storm that is being described as a “monster” by lots of weather folks.  Chris isn’t ready to predict snowfall amounts yet and all the refreshing I do doesn’t seem to be hurrying him along.  Well today I ran across the following cartoon and am now wondering what kind of sense of humor Chris has.  (By the way, this site – XKCD – is most excellent and a new favorite of mine.)

If I was a weather forecaster this is exactly the kind of stuff I would do (at least until I got fired).