weather

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).

A Note From Me to The Guardian Readers

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

Praise Be! The road is drivable.

Um. Pardon me. For reasons I don’t really understand, I read The Guardian especially when y’all are having freakish weather. This is strange because I live across the pond in West Virginia. I’ve only been to the U.K. once and while I fell wildly in love with London, I don’t have any ties to your fair isles.

However, to-wit, and tut tut, I’m fascinated watching y’all carrying on in and carrying on about the snow. This episode has been extra fun because we too are having an early taste of winter. I’m sitting here gazing out the door looking at our first “significant” snow fall of the season – about 3″ maybe 4″ of the fluffy stuff (8-10 cm). It’s about 22 F (-5 or so C) which is cold, but not freakish.

I haven't even gotten fall's leaves raked yet.

Around here, that’s enough snow to have the school kids hoping school will be cancelled for tomorrow. Actually an inch is enough to have them hoping.

In these parts, we do what I call the “Appalachian Snow Panic” – dubbed such because “here” is located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It’s an odd little tradition, but at the forecast of anything more than a dusting, folks gather up the kids, grampa and Great Aunt Gertrude to go to the grocery store. It’s kind of required. They usually wait until the snow is actually falling to do the mad scramble for provisions. This adds not only drama, but the likelihood that snow crazed folks will play bumper cars on the roads.

Anyway. By 6:00 last night there wasn’t a gallon of milk or loaf of bread to be found. Even people with glutin and lactose intolerances join in the snow frenzy of procuring bread and milk. It’s evidently a beloved tradition that we will engage in time and time again between now and March.

Cold and sunny. Snow squalls expected later.

My question, yes I do have one, is, ahem, exactly how much snow did London get? I really can’t make heads or tails of it.

And, for the record, tell those folks whining about how Switzerland and other Nordic climes fare so much better to quiet down and take their hypocritical selves out to a pub or something. Snow removal, melting salt, and “grit” cost a heap of money. Y’all just need to munch on some toast, turn the milk into brandy-laced hot chocolate and cruise online newspapers in some other country. It’s a big bunch of fun.

Toodles, Connie

P.S.  Can anyone explain to my Inner Anglophile how it is that I’ve believed, until last year’s Trafalgar Square snowball fight, that London routinely got buried in snow?