It's Snowing!

And the dogs are not happy about it.  It's about 6-8 inches, all white, soft and fluffy.  Sounds are muffled and the place looks like a postcard.  I haven't lived in a snow area for almost thirty years and while I may think it's pretty now, that will quickly change.  The roads will be plowed and salted, the snow will pile up by the curb and turn brown and slushy from car exhaust.  At least is isn't going to be like when I lived in Germany.  I would drive the ex to work, passing by numerous fields covered with pure driven snow and come back less than an hour later and those pristine fields would now be covered with neat rows of manure spread by the honeywagons.  The offal fragrance would travel on the crisp air and overwhelm the senses until you were back home and safely indoors.

Several years later we lived off Route 209, between Kerhonkson and Kingston, NY, in a small one bedroom house that was heated by oil.  If you had the money.  During the winter heating oil was our most important bill.  We were as frugal as possible, but when your pipes freeze for eight days and you're boiling snow to flush the toilet and taking ho baths in the restroom at work, one tends to think that the term "winter wonderland" is a tad overrated.

I loved snow when dad was stationed in Spokane.  There was this marvelous thing called snow day and you didn't have to go to school, but then we were transferred to Puerto Rico and its beach weather and I've been a tropical girl ever since.  Rarely do I think that it's too warm.  Last night as I was shivering in bed I wondered where those personal summers were that some women complain about and then I covered my head with the covers and I warmed up enough to go to sleep.

Thermal underwear, gloves and a winter hat have greatly increased my tolerance to the cold, I wish I could say the same for the car.  It sounds like a belt is being tortured and the sound goes away after it warms up, I hope nothing breaks.  I bought a snow brush ice scraper thingy and some window de-icer but I'm not happy about my tires.  One shouldn't slide when accelerating at 2 mph, I'm so glad they're new.  It doesn't really matter since the car is snowed in and the maintenance guy locked up the shovels.

Meanwhile, back in the somewhat real world.

Off the deep end.  While I may not like Obama, every little farting thing that goes wrong is not his fault and blaming him because regulations that have been in place for many years prohibiting animals from food establishments is a little over the top.  As was banning the dog in the first place.

Why is everyone so surprised that there isn't going to be a public option?  Congress has done very little over the last thirty years to help those people who don't put massive amounts of campaign cash in their pockets and everything that the corporations  who do contribute have asked for.  Making it harder and more expensive to file bankruptcy when all indicators showed that out of pocket expenses for health care were increasing and that a majority of bankruptcies were related to medical issues should have been a glaring warning sign.  So of course it makes sense to add another mandatory expense to shrinking household budgets and babble about health care gulags or the wonders of employer based insurance when people don't have jobs and companies are eliminating benefits faster than the road runner evading a falling anvil.

BBB