Snow Days..............or: The Best Laid Plans etc
I woke up yesterday morning at 4:30 with ambitious plans for a long and productive day. The upper respitory crap-itis that had plagued the previous three days and nights was mostly at bay and I have at least two or three car loads of sundry "stuff, assorted, not otherwise indicated by name", ready to go to Goodwill and/or my storage locker.
Of course, the world as far as the eye could see was buried under two or three feet of drifted white fuck you flakes.
I would love to post a picture of it, but I think I killed my camera at Joe's house on Thanksgiving. I was invited there to share a marvelous dinner with him and his family. On the way into the house from the car, I caught my foot on a railroad tie edging the drive and did an ungraceful, old-guy swan dive off a three foot retaining wall into the front yard........but I digress.
At any rate, I rethought my plans and decided that I would repair to "Da Greeks'" with mobile library and office in hand, breakfast on biscuits and gravy, hold forth for a while with the usual suspects, catch up on some correspondence, review and revise some lists and tentative schedules, and knock off a chunk of "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt". (more on that when I am in a literary reviewing mode)
Generally speaking, I belong to the "Bull-through-for-now-and-let-solar-power-work-for-you" school of snow removal..........it didn't work. A one foot run is not enough to blow through a three foot drift in a rear wheel drive Lincoln Mark VIII...........a glaringly obvious design flaw peculiar to that particular model with which I was unfamiliar.
I looked for my snow shovel, but I believe it is in the shed in the back yard......which is itself half buried in snow.
I made biscuits and gravy at home................
Insofar as the solar gain aspect of my system is concerned, the ambient temperatures stubbornly remain below freezing and, though the sun is bright and strong this morning, the snows' unbroken pure albedo is reflecting enough free radiant heat to smelt several tons of iron ore uselessly back into space.
For those of you inclined to fret over my well being, I really could stay snow bound for about a month..........I have enough in the way of staples, with the exception of milk (and in a pinch I could reconstitute some evaporated milk if I needed it for cooking or cereal), I have what I need to make bread for sandwiches, there are at least a hundred books here that I haven't read yet, I have enough tobacco and papers for about 200 cigarettes, two cans of coffee, about fourteen beers, a bottle of Jamesons, and fifteen hundred hits of aspirin.
I'm good...........
I was fascinated with the idea of being the live in caretaker of a place like the "Overlook" when the novel "The Shining" first came out.........without all the spooky devil shit of course.
It would really be kind of nice to be snowbound for a season..........I could handle it by myself. I actually scoured the internet for just such a job a couple of months ago when I was making a rough plan for the immediate future. It goes without saying that it would be better with a truly compatable friend...........by which I mean someone who knew when to leave me the fuck alone and find their own corner to play in for a while.
'Twould be even better with a truly compatable "intimate" friend....*grins*
..........even better in a cozy wood heated cabin instead of a honkin' big-assed hotel.
In the midst of civilization, however, it isn't long before some energetic young capitalist is pecking at your door offering to shovel you out of your sweet isolation in exchange for filthy lucre.............I should be freed from my crystaline Walden by the time the sun goes down..........for the bargain price of thirty bucks.
In the meantime, I have enough to keep me occupied along any one of at least a dozen equally necessary avenues of endeavor.
*sigh*
Thus endeth the entry..........
Of course, the world as far as the eye could see was buried under two or three feet of drifted white fuck you flakes.
I would love to post a picture of it, but I think I killed my camera at Joe's house on Thanksgiving. I was invited there to share a marvelous dinner with him and his family. On the way into the house from the car, I caught my foot on a railroad tie edging the drive and did an ungraceful, old-guy swan dive off a three foot retaining wall into the front yard........but I digress.
At any rate, I rethought my plans and decided that I would repair to "Da Greeks'" with mobile library and office in hand, breakfast on biscuits and gravy, hold forth for a while with the usual suspects, catch up on some correspondence, review and revise some lists and tentative schedules, and knock off a chunk of "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt". (more on that when I am in a literary reviewing mode)
Generally speaking, I belong to the "Bull-through-for-now-and-let-solar-power-work-for-you" school of snow removal..........it didn't work. A one foot run is not enough to blow through a three foot drift in a rear wheel drive Lincoln Mark VIII...........a glaringly obvious design flaw peculiar to that particular model with which I was unfamiliar.
I looked for my snow shovel, but I believe it is in the shed in the back yard......which is itself half buried in snow.
I made biscuits and gravy at home................
Insofar as the solar gain aspect of my system is concerned, the ambient temperatures stubbornly remain below freezing and, though the sun is bright and strong this morning, the snows' unbroken pure albedo is reflecting enough free radiant heat to smelt several tons of iron ore uselessly back into space.
For those of you inclined to fret over my well being, I really could stay snow bound for about a month..........I have enough in the way of staples, with the exception of milk (and in a pinch I could reconstitute some evaporated milk if I needed it for cooking or cereal), I have what I need to make bread for sandwiches, there are at least a hundred books here that I haven't read yet, I have enough tobacco and papers for about 200 cigarettes, two cans of coffee, about fourteen beers, a bottle of Jamesons, and fifteen hundred hits of aspirin.
I'm good...........
I was fascinated with the idea of being the live in caretaker of a place like the "Overlook" when the novel "The Shining" first came out.........without all the spooky devil shit of course.
It would really be kind of nice to be snowbound for a season..........I could handle it by myself. I actually scoured the internet for just such a job a couple of months ago when I was making a rough plan for the immediate future. It goes without saying that it would be better with a truly compatable friend...........by which I mean someone who knew when to leave me the fuck alone and find their own corner to play in for a while.
'Twould be even better with a truly compatable "intimate" friend....*grins*
..........even better in a cozy wood heated cabin instead of a honkin' big-assed hotel.
In the midst of civilization, however, it isn't long before some energetic young capitalist is pecking at your door offering to shovel you out of your sweet isolation in exchange for filthy lucre.............I should be freed from my crystaline Walden by the time the sun goes down..........for the bargain price of thirty bucks.
In the meantime, I have enough to keep me occupied along any one of at least a dozen equally necessary avenues of endeavor.
*sigh*
Thus endeth the entry..........
posted by captn | 12/02/2006 09:53:00 AM
4 Comments:
Oh, how I loved "The Shining." The movie did it no justice whatsoever. King's descriptions are far more detailed than any picture could show.
Hope you enjoy the snow :) Good luck.
Reminds me of the huge snowstorm we had the week before spring break my freshman year of college. I drove down to Denver during the first few inches or so to see my boyfriend at work. It just so happened he worked at a hotel, so when the drifts topped five feet we simply holed up in a room for four days. It wasn't really as exciting as I had imagined.
Ladies, it is now the start of the fourth day of my isolation ....but last night I discovered that I had overlooked one crucial item without which I cannot do. So, today I must shovel my way out.
I am out of soap for the dishwasher.
Lauren......Kubrick (Nicholsen, Duvall, et al) did a better job than King himself did with his mini-series.....but you're right about the book vs. movie.
However, if it weren't for movies based on books, many people would never read some very worthwhile books....so there is an upside to it, even if the movie maker tweaks the bejesus out of the story.
Emily.....one room wouldn't be a lot of fun after about a day and a half.....(well sometimes it would be *grins*). You would need at least a good sized cabin with lots of rooms, a fireplace, a nice kitchen, a good library and a hot tub or sauna.....and be able to go muck about outside from time to time.
Um ok a few flaws in your plan of being stuck at home.....your f****ing phone isnt working so I didnt know if you were alive or dead and couldnt drudge through the snow in your yard in my work clothes this morning. So around four thirty I sent Travis in there to make sure you weren't dead in there only to find out you werent home and apparently had walked somewhere. Unless your frozen in the backyard somewhere! Thankfully Aimie was able to pick Chy up from the bus stop, we havent found your body and Trav said the house smelled like food! Love you .....dont forget you have loved ones who worry Mr.!!!
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