CafeChatNoir

So, Osama bin Laden is dead and has been buried at sea, in accordance with Islamic tradition concerning bodies at risk of being desecrated.  Only in America would be manage to respsect the death rites of even our worst enemy.  (Yes, I understand the practical considerations as well, no need to have a shrine somewhere for him that a traditional burial would bring.)

I don’t know if anyone really noticed, but it wasn’t even a few hours after the announcement of his death that “See something, say something” was being reiterated across the internet.  I’m quite certain no one out there believes that the death of bin Laden signals an end to extremist violence around the world.  But at least give us an overnight, maybe a day to enjoy finally winning the longest damn game of hide and seek on record.  A small break from being pushed to paranoia in the name of National Security would be quite welcome.

Getting rid of one person, even if it is the guy at the top, isn’t really going to change things.  There are still followers, still people who hate for irrational reasons and who will lash out with violence or rhetoric to incite violence as their response to their own fear of a changing world.*

It will never be gone, but there is one less person advocating it today.

Is it right that he died voilently at our hands when we supposedly are a peace loving nation?  I don’t know, but two things come to mind:
- Karma is a bitch, and
- He started it.  (OK, that’s my inner 8 year old talking, but my outer adult can’t argue with the sentiment.)

*It’s not a Muslim extremist thing.  It’s an extremist of any kind thing.  Fear leads to hate and then violence.  Any diety provides a good excuse.

For someone who isn’t exactly a huge social butterfly – this weekend was like the Tardis – bigger on the inside.  And then the President scheduled an address to the American people…

After a ridiculously social weekend where I was utterly exhausted and completely wound up beyond belief, I went up to my favorite watering hole for a pint or two and commiseration over the Caps being down 2 games in the series against Tampa Bay.

Then things got interesting…

Notice of a Presidential address.  Hmmm.  Late Sunday night?  WTF could that be that the major networks didn’t already know?  Couldn’t be the economy – that’s more prime time than late night.  Walked out for a smoke* and walked back in and every crawl had the news of the death of Osama Bin Laden.

Well that will certainly change the tone of an evening to be sure.

Though I will be happier with photographic and/or DNA confirmation, as I said on Facebook – I’m glad the cocksucker is dead.**  I’ll admit that while cheering I did send off a message to Friday’s dinner companion to get his thoughts on the matter as he has some experience with all this.  (What a strangely fortuitous time for him to find his way back into my virtual rolodex.)

That all being said, while news of this doesn’t necessarily change anything in the big scheme of thing – it’s nice to feel like we can firmly put one in the Win column for a change.  (I’m sure there have been other wins, but they don’t all filter down to the American public…)

As much as I know I shouldn’t take any glee or pleasure in another’s death – this jackass tried to kill my friends.  In my mind, after that, all bets are off and you deserve whatever painful and ugly end that befalls you.

Working backwards to more positive parts of the weekend…

This afternoon I spent a few lovely hours at Wheaton park with Chris and Celia and their two gorgeous little ones.  This encounter made me realize that Facebook (and the Internet et al) can warp time a little bit.  It wasn’t until I sat down and thought about it that I realized I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen them since they got married.  Thanks to the grapevine, email and Facebook, I had a fairly decent idea of what was going on with them, so it didn’t seem like it had been that long since I’d seen them.  Didn’t hurt that Celia isn’t aging.

Unlike me – if you’re asking a 6 year old.  Saturday was a great little cookout with Jen & Bob and their adorable little one, J.  Well, J’s friends from next door came over.  J, being the Hostess with the Mostest, grabbed K’s hand and said, “I have to introduce you to someone”***  K says, “Oh, your Grandma?”

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

Thankfully little J replied with a reassuringly vehement NO and that I was Aunt Cindy, but still – seriously???  I know I’ve got some grey streaks in my hair, but for me to be the grandmother of a 6 year old – there would to have been two *really* youthful pregnancies along the way.

This after I was feeling all young and semi-gorgeous on Friday night.  Up to Old Town for great evening of dinner & cupcakes & TV with a friend I hadn’t seen, in oh.. 4 years?  (Again, thanks Facebook!)  We’d lost touch thanks to work and life and stuff in general just getting in the way, but it had always been a curiously no-drama, no-holding-to-high-expectations friendship and there were no hard or hurt feelings on either side – and meeting up again it felt like we’d not skipped a beat and it was like sliding on a old pair of favorite blue jeans – just right.

That all being said, I think I will need to sleep for the next 3 days.

*I don’t want to hear it.
**Thank you to the writers of Deadwood for giving me a full appreciation of the many ways in which the word cocksucker can be considered appropriate.
***6 years old, and says “introduce” not “meet” – too smart for her own good, and god help Jen & Bob when she gets older.

So, the Royal Wedding is tomorrow.  I won’t be getting up at 6AM but I will TiVo it so I can see a few things, and skip the boring stuff.  I know a lot of folks are scratching their heads trying to figure out why anyone is fascinated, and I have a few theories:

- We don’t really have anything like the royal family here.  (Yes, I know that was part of the plan in telling England to sod off back in the day.)  Sure, we’ve got our first family, but that changes out every 4-8 years and various and sundry celebrities, but nothing quite like the royals.

- Hats.  This country does not have enough large scale events involving hats.  I especially would like to see what Grandma E busts out of the hatbox for the occasion.

- The Dress.  Of course I want to see the dress she wears.  Despite all appearances to the contrary, I do have a girly side, and she wants to see the dress!

- It’s enjoyable to watch a wedding where you know you won’t get stuck at the singles table.

- It will break the internet.

- Commoner marries a Prince!  Though I’ve long since abandoned any notions of growing up to be a Princess, I can’t help but latch on to a few of the more practical aspects, such as a very large housekeeping staff.

And for all that think the media coverage has been a touch ridiculous, just remember our media seems to only follow news and events in one of two ways:

1. Beat it into the ground like a dead horse until it turns to glue, or
2. Ignore it.

*~*~*~*~*

Speaking of beating a dead horse, the President has released his long form birth certificate…  Something that I have always felt to be a total non-issue to start with, and yet I am quite certain that this won’t be the end of it.  If it’s any consolation Mr. President, I have no desire to see your reports cards from any school you attended.  (I really didn’t care about President Bush’s grades either.  Or Clinton’s.  Or Bush Sr.’s  Or Reagan’s.)

*~*~*~*~*

Locals:  Had to go find some Rescue Remedy today, and finally found it at Felix & Oscar: Pet Food Naturally over on Backlick Road.  Of course I found it just as the storms were clearing out, but I’m guessing we’ll have a few more before the summer is over.  For whatever reason, RR is hard to find around here – Whole Foods only had the Children’s formulary – which I implore all parents of school age children to purchase, and OTPR only has it for in house use and not for sale.  (Many thanks to their giving me some samples in case I couldn’t find it today and for pointing me to F&O’s.)  Neither PetsMart or PetCo carry it.

Got two bottles cause I am sure I’ll lose the first one before it’s empty, just like I misplaced the last bottle I bought…

So, last night at a little past 0030 NORAD was doing a bit of night training which resulted in a couple of fighter jets in afterburner* flying very, very low over my residence in Northern Virginia.

I was sitting at my computer wasting time and trying to un-engage my brain and I heard *something* coming and I wasn’t even sure what it was other than the fact that I knew it would greatly upset the dog lounging out on the deck and I had to get him inside immediately.  I dashed to the back door and said, “Moxley, get your ass in RIGHT NOW!!”  (It had a sound of very severe thunder and I’d rather him inside than digging a 4 foot deep hole to take cover in outside.)  He happily complied and I went dashing to the deck to see what was up.**

I viewed what for all intents and purposes appeared to be a fighter jet in afterburner leaving the neighborhood, but sounding much more like an airplane about to lose an engine.  TO THE INTERNET!  Facebook & Twitter yielded no immediate answers other than one person on my friend list who had heard/seen the same incident and had the same questions I had.  (I am still quite surprised that there was only the two of us in the neighborhood that took to the internet to figure out what on earth was going on.)

OK, time to mine the Twitter contacts for who may be In The Know.  Well, as it happened, Nathan Hager of WTOP News (@nhagerwtop) had made a post on his account a few minutes before this Very Loud Incident above my home, so I figured he might still be up and perhaps he’d seen/heard something – and shot him a tweet.  Within minutes I had my answer of “Norad training” – and as soon as I saw Norad, I remembered seeing a blurb about a training exercise that had been postponed due to weather.  (Sadly, it didn’t stick in my head until I was reminded of it.)

So, on the Twitter side of this posting – I can’t help but give some big props to Nathan (my personal local news guru) Hager for a) paying attention to his Twitter account, even on what had to be his verge of going to bed, and b) taking the time to post a response.  It was just great to get an answer so soon.  (Really, if you’re not following @nhagerwtop, you should be!

On the “weird after-effects” side – I went to bed and damned if I didn’t have weird airplane crashing and/or end of the world dreams for the rest of the night.  I woke up at 0430 and after realizing I still had 2 hours of sleep available to me, yelled at my brain that it was just all a bunch of weird dreams and everything was OK, and that the dog, the cats, and my brother were all in and I didn’t need to worry about any of it.  Didn’t help as the weird dreams continued, but seriously, BRAIN, LET ME SLEEP.

The last time I had a couple of fighter jets go over my house in afterburner was when I lived over in Burke.  I wallked out to the porch, looked up and thought, “Cool.”  It wasn’t for a few minutes before I thought, “Wait, what??”  I can only attribute the difference in reaction to now having a dog & brother under the same roof.  (Had cats both times and all were inside anyway.)

Really, I have enough on my mind without my brain deciding to create new and non-existent disasters for me to worry on.  Really brain, chill out.

*I have forever referred to it as “on afterburner” but my Godfather (for lack of a better description) let me know it is “in” rather than “on” – WTF do I know, my Dad was on E-2’s – they don’t even have afterburners in the first place, and if you see one “on” or “in afterburner” it means an engine is on fire.

**Not sure how going outside to see WTF was happening bodes for me in the event that the Zombie Apocalypse occurs.  I may be the first one off the map.

Which shouldn’t surprise anyone I suppose.

Last week on the radio I heard a quick bit about a young man in Iowa who withdrew a wrestling match against a young woman in a statewide competition.  At the time, I just shrugged my shoulders and thought, “Well, that is certainly his prerogative” and didn’t think I’d hear much more about it.

Well, this morning, he was on one of the early shows on TV.  Now, I’m still not why this is worthy of time on a national morning news show, nor why any parent would send their kid out to an interview like that, but there it was.  And the kicker was the banner across the bottom of the screen was “Chivalrous or Chauvinistic?”

Really??  It can’t just be a kid who didn’t feel right about wrestling against a girl, knew exactly what the consequences would be, and said, “No, not for me”??  He’s either being this grand gentleman or a misogynistic bastard?

I know it has quite a bit to do with the fact that we have a 24 hour news cycle that we have to fill, and TV audiences have the attention span of fleas, and so everyone wants a flashy graphic that can boil it all down to an easy answer.  But it still annoys me.

…I’m not a total idiot.

Yes, I have shifted a bit left in my outlook over the last 20 some odd years, but I also really had nowhere to go on the right side of things given where I started.  I’d actually put myself pretty smack in middle of the center, but there seems to not be much in the way of the middle ground right now.  My ownership of tie-dyes and Tevas seems to have thrown me over the edge.  (And resulted in some incorrect assumptions of lesbianism, but that’s another post.)

That all being said and out of the way…

I realize that Mubarak continuing to be in power in Egypt is a good thing for the United States – not just because he is an ally, but for no other reason that “the devil you know”…  I really do understand that.

Yes, there is probably a decent percentage of Egyptians that are totally OK with him continuing to be in power.  I understand that as well.  (I say probably because I don’t have any polling figures, and I have to assume that not everyone hates him.)  That being said, I don’t think there is a bogeyman behind every door should he either step down or be voted out of office.  Yes, there *could* be, but just because something could happen doesn’t mean it *will* happen.

However, given that there are people of all ages* out there risking everything to make their voices heard – I’d say there are some real grievances that need to be addressed, and quickly.  Yes, a lot of the issues are economic in nature, and those can’t be fixed by any one person, but part of the price of being the guy in charge is that you get the blame along with the accolades.  (Had the US economy been going great guns in 2008, I think the Republicans would have had a better chance at staying in the White House.)

I know my life is nothing like that in other countries.  But being a big sentimental pile of mush – I’d like for people to be able to wake up wherever they are and even if they don’t *like* their government, they feel they can say so, do so safely, be heard, and see change as a result.

But what the hell do I know.

*For all I’ve heard of the protests being “youth oriented”, I’ve seen a LOT of people over 30 out there.

I’ll admit, I’m having some trouble wrapping my head around what’s going on in Egypt.  Intellectually, I get it – the very short version is that people are sick and tired of being sick and tired – and they’re doing something about it.

Given that we have an opportunity to throw some bum out on a national level every 2 years, it’s hard to conceive of being stuck with the same guy at the top for 30 years, and have no opportunity to say, “No, this isn’t working for us, we need someone different.”  Being under Emergency Law for 30 years because “the bad guys might get a foothold” has to lose it’s shine after a very short period of time.  It has to become obvious after a while that there isn’t much of an emergency other than the guy in charge might lose his job.

Finally having the guts to lean out the window and say “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” – I get that.  People can only take so much.  A very, very large chunk of the country taking to the streets – something they’re not even allowed to do in the first place.  Putting themselves up against the police force.  Putting themselves up against the army.  (Which seems to have taken the position of protecting the demonstrators from the police from a few things I’ve seen on Twitter.)  Having most of your channels of communication to the outside world completely cut off.

I think where I keep getting stuck is that these aren’t just little isolated incidents.  These people are telling their leader to get out all across the country.

I know the beginnings of our own country weren’t that far off – but I also wasn’t there, so I have trouble visualizing it.

My day has been, “Make some breakfast, do some dishes, take care of some bills, watch the All Star game, tend to some of my Avon order.”  Pretty mundane about the house things.  Things that probably happen in households all over the world.

I’d say in Egypt right now, the similarities end right after breakfast.  See who is taking the next shift on neighborhood patrol to keep any opportunistic asshat looters out of the neighborhood.  Make sure they’re armed, maybe send some tea & sandwiches along.  Grab the kids and head out to the demonstrations so Dads, Brothers & Uncles can come home and get some rest.  Pick jaw up off floor when Mubarak says, “I fired the government, and got a Vice President for ya!” and mutter, “You have GOT to be shitting me.”

I know I am so insanely lucky to live in a country where if I think the guys in charge are doing a bad job, all I have to do is march myself to the Elementary school up the street and vote for someone I think can do better, and I don’t have to risk life, limb or imprisonment to do it.

So – to the Egyptians risking everything out there to see Mubarak leave power:  Good luck, and I hope in the end Egypt is a better place for ALL of your citizens.

If you’re looking for a pretty decent timeline of what’s been going on in Egypt, look no further than Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_protests

Haven’t seen anything else as comprehensive so far.  (I shouldn’t have been surprised when I found it, it makes sense that a collaborative site like Wikipedia would have a continuously updated page on an international event like this.)

What boggles my mind a bit is that if your citizenry has taken to the streets to demand your removal, why would you think that firing the rest of the government and appointing a Vice President would make everything OK and all would go home?  I’m also guessing that it’s a touch unnerving to have the people of your country stop being afraid of you.

This storm was MUCH worse than anyone anticipated – no one realized it was going to be nasty, wet, heavy snow that would bring down tree limbs at every other house in Northern Virginia and cause transformers to blow all over the place.

Saw an short article today saying that Dominion says they could have done better with communication.

Our power went out at 8:45 Wednesday evening.  I immediately reported the outage online and the initial reply was that they were still in assessment mode and couldn’t give a restoration estimate.  Perfectly understandable, given that they had 200,000 customers without power.  I opted for a callback at anytime with an update.  At about 4AM I got an automated call saying the restoration window would be Noon to 6PM on Thursday.  When I got up on Thursday, I checked online and saw that it had been updated to 7AM to 1PM.  (I missed the second update call.)

At 12:20, our power came back on.

I felt that they did fine with communication in my situation.  When they restoration window was established, they called me.  When it changed, they called me.  (Even though I missed it.)  I was able to look online and see those estimates as well.

I’m really not sure they could have done anything else to communicate better with me.

The snow started at about 3:30 and it’s been going like gangbusters and it’s heavy, heavy, wet snow.

School was cancelled for tomorrow at 7:30 PM.

It has taken one of my friends a good 5 hours to get home.

The power just went out a few minutes ago – there are now 107K people without power in the county.  I doubt we’ll have it back anytime soon given that the transformers over the hill have been exploding.

We have a tree down in the backyard – of course, it went into our neighbor’s yard.  Fortunately, thanks to it being a rather light and bendy tree (despite it’s overall size) it is resting gently on the fence.  I do not own a chainsaw.  There is another tree leaning a bit – we knocked off as much snow as we could, but I’m guessing it’s going to go over as well.  That one is at least facing the yard.  And the house…

I can’t say I remember a snowstorm that did this much damage this quickly.  Thunderstorms, yes, but not snowstorms.  And it’s supposed to keep snowing until midnight.  Yay.

And a great example of why kids think adults are idiots.  I’ve got 5th graders this week and next week, and yesterday before dismissal I gave them the big speech about “don’t count on a snow day, it’s going to be rain and then change to snow much later in the day, so do your homework.”  Fast forward 14 hours, we have an impressive amount of sleet and a day off.  I’m sure their parents also said, “She may be a substitute, but your teacher is right, now do your homework.”

Now, while I’m sure some of the kids are happy they have the day totally free to do whatever they want because they did their homework last night, I’m quite certain there is a large segment of the student population thinking, “WHY did I bother with my homework last night???  The adults didn’t know ANYTHING.”

This is why Jack Weinberg said, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.”

During the break in the weather this afternoon, I headed up to the market.  We need milk.  Not because it is snowing, but because we are out of milk as of today – I would have been hitting the store no matter what.  However, it would seem that a LOT of people in the neighborhood had the exact same idea of taking advantage of the weather pause.

Now, when I am at the store and I know we’ve got snow coming, I find I can’t just get the one or two things that are on my list.  All semblance of good nutrition and meal planning go completely out the window.  I suddenly want things absolutely crammed with fat, calories, carbohydrates and any other thing that is particularly unhealthy.  It’s like I’m bit possessed as I roam the aisles.  Fixings for cheese dip!  More stock for cheese grits!  Mexican cheese for tacos for dinner!  Decent tortillas!!  (Why I bought Piñata tortillas the last time I was out is beyond me.)  Kielbasa!  Potatoes!  Cinnamon bread for French toast!  Taquitos!  Mini chocolate frosted donuts!  (Those just appeared in my cart.  I don’t know how they got there.  Some 3 year old must have tossed them in and run away.)

Knowing that this nutritional debacle was looming ahead for the next 24 hours, I did at least have a salad for lunch.

In other snow related thoughts, I have found that in my role as substitute teacher, I am happy to defend snow days.  Yes, I do like the bonus day off – I am human after all.  Yes, I know it totally screws up things for parents, especially with so many families with both parents working.  However, I am fairly certain that on days like this, the Superintendent doesn’t get up at 4AM and dial VDOT for road conditions thinking, “Let’s see how many people I can completely and utterly inconvenience today!”

There are employees that are already en route to work by 5AM, so they’ve got to make the call by 4:30.  If the roads are crap, they can push it back 2 hours if they really think things will improve, but if it’s still crap at 6:30 – the day is done.  Lots of teens drive themselves to work.  Do you enjoy being on the road with 17 years olds on a GOOD day, much less in sleet?  I didn’t think so. :)

I was up at 6:30 this morning – still too much sleet to be safe at that point, and I’m sure it was much worse out in the western part of the county.  We had some rain in the middle of the day today, but it’s just now turned to a snow/sleet mix again – right when the buses would be back on the roads trying to get the elementary school kids home.  I think the closing was a good call today.

I knew it was on the schedule from previous news reports, but had no idea it was today until I spent about 2 hours in the car listening to WTOP, and then I heard about it around a dozen times.

I will say that I do understand the concept. There are lots of folks out there with prescription drugs that they no longer need or want* and/or have long since expired sitting in their medicine cabinets. They also want to get rid of them, and don’t feel that there is a truly safe way to dispose of said drugs. I’ll also not even begin to argue the fact that prescription drug abuse is a problem. I’ve personally known someone who was skimming painkillers from his parents’ stash. (The pathetic part is that he was supposedly an adult, but whatever.)

But for years we were told, “Flush the drugs!” However, if the water testing is even remotely accurate – boy howdy, did we. It sounds like the Rockfish being caught are exceptionally relaxed and lacking back pain, anxiety, and STD’s given the amount of ibuprofen, naproxen, carbamazepine, sulfamethoxazole, and triclocarban that were found in the waters in 2008.

So, the powers on high changed their tune from “flush it” to “chuck it”. Really not a problem – it’s a mere 8 feet from my powder room to my trash can, so it’s hardly a trial to change my ways. (Not that I wasn’t chucking old meds into the trash to begin with, but if I had been flushing them, it’s not exactly difficult to start putting them in the trash bin.)

My issue with the whole DEA giveback is this: How stupid are we that we can’t actually move from flushing our drugs down the loo to simply upending the bottle of pills into the trash can and recycling the bottle, and now we have to go to a “Prescription Drug Turn-In Event” to make this happen? Did they have free funnel cakes, corn dogs and moon bounces at these events? Cause if they did, then I’ll be turning in my unused Centrum vitamins at the next event. But I suspect that there were no awesome freebies to be had, which really, really makes me wonder – WHY would you drive over all town to dump your pills when your trash can is RIGHT IN YOUR KITCHEN??

Yes, there are people who will happily dredge through your trash to try to steal your identity, but I would have to say that I’m fairly sure they wouldn’t take an unidentified pill that they found in the midst of the cat litter – everyone does have some standards. And if they choose to do so? Then they certainly deserve getting a dose of cat-sized Amoxicillin when they thought they were getting adult-sized Percoset.

Come on America – you’re smarter than this. Save your gas and time and just toss the pills in the trash already!! You don’t need an “EVENT” to get rid of them!

*I’ll admit the idea of “wanting” to dump perfectly good prescription drugs is slightly foreign to me – I’m OK with having prescription drugs on hand in case of accidentally twisting a knee or throwing out a back. However, my kickass painkillers are non-narcotic, so they’re not exactly coveted by those looking for an easy high – if you take them when nothing hurts – nothing even remotely interesting happens.

So, we have a new Supreme Court Justice nominee. I’ll admit I don’t know a ton about her yet, but I’m quite sure the pundits on both side will let me know a lot in the near future. I do know that Elena Kagan is the Solicitor General and was a dean of Harvard’s law school, so I’m fairly certain she’s not stupid.

I was in the car listening to the announcers talk about the nominee with a couple of commentators about it. Some worries that she hasn’t been a judge, which were quickly countered with the point that there have been several justices and chief justices that weren’t judges. (Apparently all on the court today have been judges. I don’t see an issue with throwing someone a little different in the mix. I don’t think we have a Harriet Myers situation on our hands here.)

I was a bit amused by a comment that came from a Congressman (I think) about the Supreme Court not being academia and “not a place for flights of fancy and intellectual debates.” (I may be paraphrasing a bit, I can’t find the quote online to confirm.) Well, heaven forbid there be any intellectual debate taking place on the Supreme Court! We certainly can’t have that.

Then one of the announcers asked if there would be questions about her sexuality.

This was where I almost ran off the road. Wait, her WHAT?

It seems she’s 50, single and has never been married. Well, I guess we all know what that means.

It means she’s 50, single and has never been married.

Please, PLEASE tell me that no one on the Judiciary Committee is going to decide that because she’s never been married that she must be a lesbian and then decide that would make her too liberal or otherwise biased. Someone please tell me there isn’t anyone on that committee or in the media would go down that road. We’re all better than that, right?

Researchers have determined that our brains are set up to handle two things at once, but not more.

I can’t say I’m surprised to hear it – I can multitask, but I’m not truly spectacular at it by any means.

Now, that we have this information, do you think folks will slow down a bit and just attempt to do one thing at a time?

Yeah, probably not. We’ll continue to try to do 10 things at once and wonder why we’re tired, harried, stressed trainwrecks of human beings.

But, I am going to take inspiration from this article and go watch the second period of the hockey game, and maybe add some cat snuggling into the mix. But no more than that. :)

So, Forbes came out with their list of the 25 wealthiest counties in the United States, and my home county of Fairfax came in second. (Congrats to Loudon for coming in at #1.)

The median household income in Fairfax County is $106,785

Wow – sorry to my fellow residents for seriously dragging down the average.  I’ve lived and worked here for longer than I care to admit, and not even on my BEST year did I have a household income even within spitting distance of $106K.

Now, maybe it’s high because it’s a per household number and not per capita, and we have a lot of dual income families in the county.  Or, it could just be that I am a total slacker to never really aspired to much of anything.  :)

But really, where did this all come from?  When I went to bed last night at 2:30AM I looked at the local, regional and national radar – and I honestly could not see where any more snow could come from.  Everything was past us and heading in a northeasterly direction.  There was a very small blob of precip down by Blacksburg, but nothing else.  I really couldn’t see where there was any other precip.

Then I was awakened at 7:45 this morning by my NOAA radio kindly letting me know that we’re all going to die.  I am trying to find an animated loop of the regional radar over the past 6 hours to see when & where this second storm cell developed when there was nothing there 5 hours earlier.

I should have stuck with my instincts and just not gone to bed.  I’m serious – I was really toying with the idea.  (Too much snow + too much caffeine = ideas of staying up all night to beat Mother Nature.)  This is what the snow has done to me.  I had been keeping up with the snow on Friday night until I went to bed.  Last night, the driveway, sidewalk and car were cleared off.  And then I went to bed.  And it all went to hell.  IF I’D JUST STAYED UP ALL NIGHT THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED.

Part of me thinks that I should get out there and at least take a few whacks at it.  The intelligent part of my brain says not to set a toe outside until I see my neighbors out there or the wind dies down a bit.  My sweet southern neighbor brought home a brand new snowblower yesterday and while I would never in a million years expect or even ask for help unless I desperately needed it, maybe I’ll get lucky we’ll be out at the same time and he’ll want to do more snowblowing.  :)

There must be a 6 hour radar loop somewhere that I can look at if no other reason than to satisfy my curiosity.

Moxley, Mr. “I love the wind!” went out and then wouldn’t come back in.  WTF dog?!  So, I get dressed, shoes on and take 2 steps out the back door and he trundles right in.  I think it was his way of saying, “If I have to go to the bathroom in this nonsense, you have to get out of your PJ’s.”

*This was the same neighbor who was positively ecstatic when I was house/dogsitting and the tree fell in the driveway.  Before I could even figure out who to call or what to do, he was out there with the chain saw and a huge smile on his face.

And when I heard that on the radio, I will be perfectly honest, the words that came out of my mouth were, “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???”

I really don’t understand how folks that live in places like Buffalo and have this much snow on the ground most of the winter don’t just lose their minds.  I realize it must just be something you get used to after you’ve lived there a while, but I guess I can say I understand how someone might feel the first year they lived there.  (And of course, they do have the experience and equipment to deal with this type of snow in short order.)

I don’t think it’s cabin fever – I can hermit up with the best of them.  But something about this is making me a little nuts.  Maybe it’s the feeling that I have no idea whatsoever what I really should be worrying about, and the knowledge that whatever it is, there probably isn’t anything I can do about it anyway.  Case in point:  Didn’t occur to me until halfway through the storm that I could stop worrying about clearing the outside compressor as this house doesn’t have a heat pump.  (In my defense, I spent over 10 years in a house with a heat pump.  Old habits die hard I guess.)

I did run up to the post office today*.  Conditions I drove on/saw were: clear/dry, slushy, unplowed, plowed but not much, wet, and covered in water and near flooding.  Anything that’s not dry by now is going to be a sheet of ice tonight.

Now that we’ve got another 10-20 on the way, it’s time to go with the “be postive” approach…

– The driveway and sidewalks are clear, and even without the snowblower help I could have (and would have) gotten them cleared on my own.
– I’ve dug halfway to the mailbox.  (Considering the berm is over 4 feet high and somewhere between 5-6 feet deep, I’m OK with that measure of progress.)
– I have the physical ability to keep up with the snow when the next round comes.
– I don’t have to be anywhere.
– I have more than enough food, as do the pets.
– I have Coke, Milk, Beer, Wine, Liquor, Champagne and Orange Juice.
– I have power.
– I got through the first storm on my own and I can certainly hack this one if little bro doesn’t come back before it starts.
– I have good neighbors and friends who I can ask for help if I need it.

So, it’s not quite the end of the world.  Still can’t guarantee that I won’t pull a full on nutter before it’s all over, but I’m trying to be positive and consider this an excellent character building experience.  Or at least a story I can torture younguns with in 30 years.

*Car behaved nicely.  I’ll be sticking with short daylight drives until such time as I can get it to the shop with my favorite car problem: the intermittent kind.

Yes, I was kind of hoping I’d get up this morning and it would all be gone.

The road in front of my house is clear and dry, which is awesome, but from reading various comments around about neighborhood plowing, this is not indicative of the entire county.  We are on a Metrobus route, but we’re not a snow emergency route, and in years past I do NOT remember our road being tended to this well after any other snows.  I’ll certainly take it, but with other storms our road has been great and I’ve gotten out to bigger roads that are total shit, so it’s a bit deceptive.

I need to go widen the opening at the end of the driveway a bit, as addition plowing and such has dumped more snow and it’s not quite wide enough to get the car out, or my brother’s car in whenever he gets back.  I also need to figure out how to tackle the mailbox.  The neighborhood trend seems to be to just cut a 2 foot wide path from the street to the box.  I’m still glad I went ahead and put the mail on hold for a few days so I don’t have to kill myself to get that completely done today – I don’t think my back could take it.

Tomorrow’s WSW has gone from 5 inches to 8 inches with “a good likelihood of snow in excess of 10 inches.”  OH HAPPY DAY!  However, I will try my best to be diligent and shovel as it comes down rather than waiting to try to deal with 10 inches of snow at once.  (I was actually doing pretty well keeping up on Friday – until I had the audacity to go to bed.)

According to the NWS, the average annual snowfall for Dulles is 22.3 inches, and National is 16.6.  So far this year they’ve gotten 46.0 and 45.1 inches respectively.  So, at least I know it is not my imagination and this winter just seriously SUCKS.

I think come spring I’m going to burn the hoodie & jeans that have been doing shoveling duty.

There was maybe 1/4  of an inch of snow that fell after my last battle against the snow last night, so I just decided to go ahead and let the sun finish it off today, which worked just fine.  I think I was supposed to go out and help people dig out their cars or something, but I helped people that helped me yesterday – doesn’t that come out even?  I still have to deal with the mailbox, and given we have more snow coming, I just put the mail on hold for a couple days.  There’s no sense in even putting the mail on the truck if no one can get to the mailbox in the first place.  (There is snow up to the bottom of the mailbox, and then snow going into the street several feet from the plowing.)

Next time we have a blizzard, I need a non-lethal projectile weapon that is at least somewhat accurate.  I have some leyland cypress trees in the backyard with a LOT of snow on them and are leaning in a way which is mildly worrisome.  I’ve not been able to come up with any good way to knock the snow off the higher branches, and not much melted off today.  I tried lobbing a tethered water bottle at them, which kind of worked, but my throwing arm ain’t all that.  I really could have used a water balloon slingshot or a heavy duty nerf gun today – something I could have aimed out of the upstairs window.  (How my brother does not own either of these items is beyond me.)

And oh joy, we have another winter storm watch from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon with “potential for 5 or more inches of snow”  YAY!

On top of the trees and the mailbox, my car decided to stall out on me a couple times on Friday.  So, at some point this week I need to get the car to the shop.  Now, I’d just do it tomorrow and grab a cab home, but the the Federal government, County government and County schools are closed, which I think is their way of saying “Stay off the damn roads!”  Perhaps I’ll just wait until little bro gets home and coerce a ride out of him.  (At least there is nowhere I desperately have to be.)

At least through all this nonsense we kept power, which is a VERY GOOD thing.

Though I shouldn’t complain too much, as I have power, which is more than I can say for about 75K people in Northern Virginia.

There are some small indents in the snow where I worked last night.  So at least I can tell where I’ve already shoveled, but it’s a bit disheartening.  I’d say there’s at least another 10 inches out there.  The patio table (which was clear before this all started) now has at least two feet of snow on it.  The snow is almost up to the bottom of the mailbox, but there was already about a foot of snow there before all this ridiculousness started.

My neighbors on both side have snowblowers.  One has remembered the golden rule of “if you have a snowblower and your neighbor doesn’t, going a few feet past your property line when clearing the white crap out is a really decent thing to do.”  (And going all the way to the edge of my driveway is INSANELY nice.) The other apparently has never learned this.  (I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he’s trying to conserve gas and not being a selfish prick who knows damn well I don’t have an extra set of hands here.)  Someone will be getting some thank you cookies or some goodies of some sort.

The dog has attempted to go out once – I told him that he really needed for me to wait and clear a path, but oh no, he knows best.  He reconisdered once he got about a foot outside the back door.  That is the first item on the to-do list as soon as I get some caffeine in me.

The road in front of the house looks GREAT.  Not that anyone can get to it – the snow berm at the end of the driveway is now at least 4 feet high.

Well, time to start round one of the day.  Of course, I have to do the backyard first for the dog, which no one will see except him, and my neighbors will think I am ignoring the front…  They don’t know how lucky they are that I didn’t sleep until noon as it is.  Sometimes I wish I lived in a neighborhood with more slackers like me. :)

I’ve already done two rounds of shoveling, because I have this deluded idea that it will somehow make things easier in the morning.  The way it’s coming down, I’ll be lucky if there are even slight indentations in the driveway and sidewalk when I get up tomorrow.  I keep telling myself that I have shoveled 9 inches of snow, so there will only be 21 inches to go tomorrow instead of 30.  (It’s not helping.)

The plows that have been coming through have already dumped 2+ feet of snow at the end of the driveway.  I don’t even know how I am supposed to get through that without a flamethrower.  (Another reason I should really have a flamethrower.)  There have been two plows that have been looping through the neighborhood all night, and the street is plowed down to the pavement (as evidenced by the sparks flying off the plow blades as they go by) which is great except for the fact that everyone’s driveways are well and duly blocked.

Tomorrow is SO going to suck.

Despite all the reasons I don’t like living in the DC Metro area, I really do like the fact that we have 4 genuine seasons.  While I’d certainly like to have 2 months lopped off of winter and added to fall & spring, it’s not too terrible.

Except for the years when we have more than one snowstorm resulting in more than 10 inches of snow.  I’m good for a handful of snowstorms as long as they result in less than 10 inches of snow.

Personally, I hate winter, but I love snow.  Snow makes the 40-degrees-and-steel-grey-skies-and-rain almost worth it.  But I’m talking about easy/reasonable/decorator snow.  Shoving aside the pre-Christmas two feet of snow (where I was wondering if we could get to the airport, much less PHX), the 6 inches of snowblower powder we had last weekend, or the 5 inches of heavy decorator snow last night were perfectly lovely.  Nothing was terribly screwed up, and I didn’t feel bad for undercharging the kiddo that came by today to shovel my walk & driveway.  (I paid him $5 more than he asked – but would have happily paid him double.)

But it would seem that in the next 36 hours we’ll be embarking on a 12 to 20 inch snowstorm.  10 inches of snow is about the most that I can handle with any measure of grace.  20 inches?  That just reinforces my desire to move to Cuba.

Can we all just think “veer off to the Atlantic” thoughts?  Cause I am in no mood to shovel that much snow.  And it only increases my desire to move to Cuba.  Or Costa Rica.  Or anywhere in Mexico where the locals are willing to assist me in getting my Spanish back up to speed.

And my snowshoveling roommate won’t be around this weekend, (damn you Super Bowl!!) and I can’t be sure that I didn’t scare the crap out of the wonderful snowshoveling kiddo by overpaying him  – he might not come back!

Let’s all think moderate snow accumulations!!!!!!!!!!

First, I’ll be perfectly honest – I thought JD Salinger was already dead. But hey, that’s what you get when you become a recluse.

I read Catcher in the Rye in high school. I didn’t have to read it for a class, though. (It’s weird, it seems most of my English classes didn’t have the traditional reading lists, and every year I’d get, “Didn’t you read this last year?” “No.”  Made college fun, too.)

But, I read it anyway. Personally, I found it to be a victim of the hype. It seriously had zero impact on me.  This could be an indicator that I was a complete unfeeling bitch at the time, but all I remember thinking was, “Your life sucks, we get it.”  I really could not fathom what the big deal was over the whole thing.

Whatever your point may have been JD, it was lost on me.  Sorry about that.

Cause I’m not feeling it just yet. Could just be the sucky weather reports for the next couple days, but it’s just not been a whole lot better than 2009.

The back window in my car has decided that it doesn’t want to work anymore, which would normally be something that I’d simply leave alone for another time, but unfortunately, the window is open about an inch and a half, and as such, actually needs to be tended to. So, I’m looking at being carless for a couple days and that annoys me, too.

There was a 6.1 magnitude aftershock in Haiti today. WTF, Mother Nature, didn’t have enough fun with the first one?

It’s sounding more and more like the health care legislation may be dead, so yay, I can look forward to my premiums continuing to rise unabated, despite my decent health and fabulous looks, and then being cancelled if I ever have to actually use it.

I have taken to turning off the ringer on the phone in my bedroom and leaving my cell phone downstairs at night because I’m done with answering tax question calls from my grandmother at 3AM. (She has a little problem with boundaries and bothering to look at clocks.) I’m pretty sure this makes me a bad person, but I need sleep to effectively be the CEO of “Keep Grandma out of a Nursing Home, Inc.” and she certainly has no problems picking up the phone during the day.

On the upside, the animals are all quite well. Carmen decided to have herself a good old fashioned feline crazy this morning and was chasing me, the dog, invisible bugs, and anything else that caught her eye. However, the Christmas tree is a little worse for the wear for her fun this morning. She is happily sleeping on my lap as I type this, which thrills Moxley to no end, because it means she is not in his crate. He was not having a super awesome time this afternoon as he couldn’t sleep in his crate because Carmen was in it (why he won’t just walk in and sit on her is beyond me) and Lily kept trying to sleep on his tail and feet. (She LOVES him and is also just a little obsessed with his feet.)

So yeah 2010 – I’m just not impressed so far. We’re stuck with each other for 11+ more months, so let’s get it together, shall we?

You stepped in it again, basically telling an impoverished country that they have no one to blame but themselves for a horrid natural disaster.  Uncaring, unfeeling, and most certainly, unChristian to say the least.

Why couldn’t you have said something like this?

“First, what a terrible tragedy to befall the Haitians.  They are in our prayers.

Second, given that I can marshal some pretty impressive resources with a snap of my fingers, here’s what we’re gonna do.  First,we’re gonna charter some bigassed airplanes.  The biggest that can land at the Port Au Prince airport.  The first one we’re gonna load up with doctors and medical supplies.  The second one will have MRE’s, bottled water and water purification kits.  Third one will be new, clean clothes.  (No Tennessee Lane Kiffin shirts, either.)  The fourth one, we’re gonna go clear out the entire stock of tents and camping equipment at REI, cause a tent is still better than nothing.  And generators.  And we’ll grab some of those kids that work at REI so we’ve got people who know how to put the tents together.

Once we’ve got everyone fed, safe and in clean socks and underwear, we’re gonna start sending planes filled with building equipment and as many retired Seabees as we can get our hands on and start fixing things.”

But no, you decided to go with the, “It’s your own damn fault for making a pact with Satan” approach.  Yeah, I guess you could have easily gone either way.

I woke up this morning in a house that was still standing, in a town that has an actual working infrastructure, I can easily locate all my friends and family, and I can just walk to my kitchen and get myself a cup of coffee and lunch.

I’m light years ahead of the folks in Haiti today. I cannot even imagine what you would do when you lose everything – and to top it all off, there’s nowhere you can go because everything else is destroyed too.  Where do you even start?  Hope someone has an extra tent and that there is some food somewhere that isn’t under a collapsed building?  How do you even decide it’s worth it to go on, especially somewhere like Haiti, where life was no great shakes to begin with?

Yeah, my cranky furnace and tempremental toilet handles really aren’t much of an issue.

The DC area has an OMG!BLIZZARD!SNOW!WHITEDEATH!THUNDERSNOW storm on the way overnight, with accumulation predictons anywhere between 8 and 20 inches.

Of course, this means I have to go to the store.  Not to panic buy, but because my life seems to be proof that God has a sense of humor, if there is a storm coming in 24 hours, there is something I need from the store, snow or no snow.  So I contribute to the insanity.  (Today’s visit was for sodas, cause no one wants to see me sans caffeine, ever.  I also wanted a salad cause I’ve eaten horribly the past couple days.)

I pulled into the Huntsman Square Giant and the parking lot is 3/4 full.  I’ve never seen it this full, even during after-work-rush, and this is at 2:00 on a weekday.  I hunkered down, and prepared for the worst.

I walked in and I was shocked. EVERY SINGLE CHECKSTAND WAS OPEN.  Every one.  This particular location annoys me to no end for their usual inability to have enough people working and enough checkouts open on a normal day, so I was completely stunned.  Everyone shopping was giggly and friendly and helping each other (thank you nice guy who got the Triscuits off the top shelf for me!) and seemed genuinely stoked for snow.  (I have to think that has a lot to do with it being on a weekend and everyone can just stay in.)

And the best part?  I only had to wait behind TWO people to get checked out.  Amazing.  Well done, Giant – I didn’t think you had it in you.

Happy snow day!

Not sure it warranted crawls on the news channels of “Waiting On Confirmation Of Execution” but some news director decided it did.

Granted, when all this DC Sniper bullshit went down in 2002, I would have gladly taken this jackass out on my own with a baseball bat for no other reason than all the psychosis he caused.  It really screwed up my day to day activities.  However, the beauty of being an American is that you get due process and all that happy horseshit.*  Mind you, I have no problems with due process, but in some cases, it does become nothing more than happy horseshit.

But time eases things, and to be perfectly honest – I wouldn’t care if he was offed by the state or simply spent the rest of his natural life rotting in a cell.  I can’t say that I am pro or anti death penalty.  I can’t honestly say that I think it is a deterrent, but I do believe there are some crimes so heinous that there should be absolutely no chance on God’s green earth that your sorry ass will ever see the light of day again – and the death penalty does accomplish that.  As does life without parole, but that doesn’t always make me feel any better.

Earlier tonight, CNN was doing a “Timeline of Terror” in response to Muhammad’s execution.  (I shit you not, that was the title they were using for the segment.  Stay classy, CNN.)

Maybe I didn’t take it seriously enough at the time, but I recall the entire situation as being insanely annoying more than anything.  While I do remember unconsciously zigzagging across parking lots on occasion, I still went to the market, the craft store, and dammit, I pumped my own gas.  It screwed up the performance at the Fredericksburg Chili Cook Off/County Fair of my then boyfriend’s college buddy, as the local police told the radio station to stop advertising the event.  (We went.  Nothing happened.)  However, in the next few days after that, there was a shooting there, and looking back at some journal entries, I did note it, and the fact that it was somewhat unnerving.  More than anything, I had the question that everyone had – WHY??

However, not unnerving enough to make me change my ways.  I remember telling my Mom, “I am not going to change a damn thing because of this jackass – if it’s random, it’s random.  If it’s not, then I’ll be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that’s not something you can predict or change.”  And damned if Mom didn’t say, “That’s how you do it.”

And when the “Why?” came out, I was more pissed off than ever.  Getting back at an ex-wife?  That’s IT?  Christ On A Cracker, way to go overboard, jackass.

I’m not really sure if I feel better knowing that he is dead.  But it sure doesn’t bother me that he isn’t among the living anymore.

I’d like to think we won’t have such trials and death sentences ahead of us for such absolute douchbaggery…but there’s a jerk in the hospital in Texas, and we’re all waiting to hear the same thing – WHY?

*A spectacular phrase that my Mom left to me.

My heart goes out to everyone at Fort Hood.  What a horrific thing to have happen.

As things have shaken out, it appears that the 3 particpants were only one, and he is not dead after all.

I find this to be a good thing so we might have some chance in hell at getting some answers as to why someone would choose to this, be it no more complicated than, “There is no way in hell you’re sending me to Iraq.”

Just a terrible day.

In today’s White House press conference, the press decided to beat up the new press secretary a bit on it with, “Well, if he took the oath again, why didn’t he sign his first executive orders again?”

Now folks, I think we ALL know why they did the oath again.  Not out of “an abundance of caution” as is the party line at the moment.

They did it to get people to STFU about the “OMG, he’s not really the president!” hollering.

He’s president.  He’s been the president since the 20th.  He will be for the next 4 years, goofed oath or not.