Thursday, February 19, 2009

The storm that wasn't, at least at my house

I guess the storm along the coast could have been worse. Inland it was. But we on the south side of Route One had a hard time getting out of above freezing temperatures, and that caused some problems for the snow. Like falling as snow!

The TV this morning indicted that the snow was wet and heavy inland and causing many power problems along with some tricky driving. There have been a few accidents. But outside my house, it looks like it was 90% rain. When I went to bed last night, the temperature was still above freezing and was there when we awoke this morning. In fact it had climbed to 37 degrees.

My neighbor was kind enough to include my yard when he pushed the slush, what little of it there was, out of his yard, so we don’t have the heavy stuff to move. I doubt my snow throwing tractor would have moved it as it simply doesn’t like slush. Gator Wife went out and moved about a quarter inch, she said, of slush off the steps.

We have no pretty scenery out there. Virtually nothing except water shows on our trees and shrubs, but the TV did indicate about 75 people in the Portland area were without power. I’m glad we don’t have anything to do, but I kind of would have liked to have had a little fresh white.

I did learn a lesson. Cameras bought in November and that have taken more pictures than I can count, mostly of our Christmas Village and the dog along with a few outside shots during the storms, need to have their battery charged occasionally. I grabbed mine this morning to take pictures of the nothingness we received and discovered the battery was dead. So, no pictures, but it is charging now. I’ve got to keep a closer eye on that one.

One praise I’d like to offer, although it’s not a dramatic one. Tuesday the weather folk, at least the ones I heard on Channel 6, were saying the storm would start in the Portland area about seven o’clock last night. None of them wavered during the day yesterday and just a couple of minutes after seven last evening, snow was falling into my yard. It quickly changed to rain.

It reminded me of several years ago, long before the “computer models” dictated what the weather would be. There was a weather forecaster, I’m not sure he even was a meteorologist, who consistently said what time storms would arrive. But that was in another era.

Sheepie. You think that AGK is big? Channel Six has a mascot cat, Togus, a yellow Coon cat owned by one of its reporters. While the reporter, Don Carrigan, reports storm stuff from his home in the mid-coast section, Togus the cat sits with him. Togus makes AGK look small, very small, but it has generally the same coloring as AGK. For you who are uninitiated, AGK stands for Absurdly Gi-normous Kitty. Sheepie is Sheepish Annie, a blogger who paints terrific word pictures.

Togus also dwarfs BFK (Big Fluffy Kitty). I think both could hide behind Togus. Carrigan almost can.

I’m sort of not missing my Thursday visit to the senior fitness place today. The place is closed to have for some alterations. It seems the physical therapy people wanted a different type of floor. So today I’m not feeling guilty about not being there. I still have one more week to get through before my heart doctor will let me return. His note says I can go back on March 3rd.

I sure do hope the size of the new place and all the new toys available to us hasn’t changed the closeness and camaraderie of my little group. When I visited last week I was impressed with all the equipment, but the stations my group uses seemed to be a long way from each other. Part of the fun of the serious work we do was being able to solve the world’s problems while doing it.

Did you see where General Motors is asking for more bailout money that the company is worth? When asked by a Congressman about the money, the CEO reportedly said it would cost more for the company to go through bankruptcy to reorganize. It would be awfully strange not to see Chevrolets, Cadillacs, and the other GM vehicles on the road. But I’d hate to put my little granddaughter out west into debt for the rest of her life.

If you live where the snow did build up, it is heavy so take it easy today cleaning it up. Wife Gator tells me that with the temperature where it is and with Neighbor Ed’s plowing, we’re simply going to let Nature do the work for us.

GiM

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