Wednesday, January 06, 2010

The Rains Come To Stay

Fleer and snark the "holidays" as you please - and I do please, and thank you, I have little truck with the fatuousness of the "holiday season" as it exists in America circa 2009 where, like a mackerel in the moonlight they doth both shine and stink - they are bright and cheery with light displays and the public celebration.But now we enter the Dark Ages, that long slog between the New Year and the Vernal Equinox, when the days are short and cold, the weather dour, wet and uncharitable. Every year they kindle a spark of pity in me for the troopers of Captain Lewis's expedition who spent 106 winter days near what is today Astoria, Oregon, and saw the sun for only a dozen or so. "All wett and disagreeable" wrote Captain Clark, and I know how he felt. Monday this week I spent drilling in the cold rain and wind, topped up with cold medicine and feeling generally mean and griping.I truly dislike this time of year.We're also trying to wean the kidlets off the electronic babysitters - computer and television - which means that the day starts before six and doesn't end until the last little has been settled in, around eight thirty. THEN we can make lunches, read, talk, watch television or play on the computer. It makes for a very long day, and the short daylight doesn't help. The day seems more drudging when you begin and end your workday in darkness.

But it's eight weeks or so. We can do eight weeks. Right?

I think.


C'mooooon, sun.

In the meanwhile, enjoy a visit to "Married To The Sea" for some funny-ass cartoons.I'm serious. Joe Bob says check 'em out.

5 comments:

rangeragainstwar said...

Chief,
In FL when it rains the most commonly heard cmt is-we needed it.
That should improve things for you.
jim

Red Sand said...

You can do eight weeks. You can. I shuddered today when I saw they were trying to sell rainboots at the grocery store, knowing that the -40 weather has yet to arrive in full. It looms and looms...

Meghan H said...

Beer. As Homer Simpson says, "it's the cause of and solution to all our problems." I take this weather as an excuse to curl up on the couch with an IPA.

Pluto said...

At the moment I'll trade you visions of January misery.

AEL will probably upstage me again (darned Canadians and their true tales of Arctic survival) but our January is sunny, windy, and VERY COLD. Windchill here is expected to be -40 at dawn today. I've got an inch of ice on the driveway and salt can't touch it until the temperature gets above 20 degrees, which it HASN'T done since Christmas day.

Needless to say, not much geotech work gets done in weather like this.

Lisa said...

I don't like this cold weather, either. Maybe if I had a fireplace and a hot toddy, but I don't.