Category: Weather

Heave ho

I am still in shock about how much freaking junk I have.  I am so emotionally attached to my books that I’m sitting in the pile of boxes going, wah, wah instead of brutally tossing them.  I’ll be a lot happier when I’m done.  When I get rid of clothes I think “Off to Value Village with you!” and there isn’t a horrible feeling to go along with it.  Books are like little, immobile, rectangular friends, and you don’t just haul your friends off to the garbage.  I have Bookcrossing on some of my books but to do all of them would many days of labour, and so…. I guess they are off to storage.  Heavy sigh.

It freaking SNOWED here again last night.  I know that in late December a dusting of snow on the neighbourhood rooftops is all pine scent and lush orchestrations of cherished carols, but this close to the first of April methinks anything but peace and goodwill when it’s something I see before I’ve had any coffee.

Last night, I failed to cook dinner!  I made cheese scones, but I actually went to bed before sunset, woke briefly at 10:30, and then back to bed until ten after seven.  Moving is tiring; yesterday it was unpacking pretty solidly.  I did make lunch for the menfolks – Keith was here and how good to see him.

Sundry

It had to happen.

I’m off to the US today.  I have to leave to go pick the car up in about an hour.  It used to be that you took your birth cert and off you went, and now it’s B1 letter and passport and be prepared for a lengthy wait.  I am glad I am going, but not glad that my back will be trashed by the time I crawl into bed tonight – and it’s been so good since Monday night – and not glad about some other things about which it would be impolitic and possibly career limiting to whinge.
Beef teriyaki stir fry last light, and an episode of Deadwood.  Managed to get my driver’s license address/care card address changed, and stopped off at Brentwood on the way home for ingredaments – what is it about pea pods that makes stir fries automatically better?  I’ve fired off the invite for the housewarming (April 4) and the first FNFD (April 11) and I’ve already gotten a couple of responses, which is great.  Ack, time for a shower.

Eddie was meowing at the back door at 4:22 this morning.   Pouring rain still.  Flurried briefly on the mountain yesterday, everybody in my department all looked up from their desks and gasped simultaneously.

Confirmed sighting

Well, nobody can say the Luddite’s imaginary any more – as fictional a character as he appears to be sometimes, even to me, he has BEEN SEEN by Jeff, and proved to be substantial enough to help move a freezer and a rug.  My nefarious posse is proving of service…..

It is snowing very hard and very abruptly. It started spot on 6:45 and it looks like staying, gosh darn. Another night of glorious weather while trying to get to singing lessons.

Good times, ow, solar science

Went dancing last night to the melodious strains of the Blue Meenies, a fabulous cover band of these parts, and they had Winter Ale on tap at the John B! Home by 12:30 thanks to one of my fellow revellers. Daughter Katie jammed, mentioning something about self-care. We had a small and lively crew there and it was lovely to see Mike and Heather.

This morning, of course, the piper has arrived with his hand out; I am interesting varieties of sore. Daughter Katie is showing up this afternoon, possibly maybe, for a meal and a visit, and then I’m off to the Luddite’s for dinner. I really wish I could crosspost his last email to me – it is a masterpiece of British humour. Reference to this video was made. NOTE: it is nothing you won’t see on TV these days, but that doesn’t mean you want your boss walking up behind you while you are thoughtfully educating yourself with its four and a half minutes of hardhitting content.

So after all this gimping about with climate change, and everything supposedly getting warmer, some bunch of solar science geeks are saying we’re heading into solar minimum and it’s going to get ass freezing cold around here. Well, why not!? It’s a planet, it’s a complex system, and I wish I hadn’t given away my ski pants. Here’s the consensus view of the timing of the event.

Here’s the International MSM take on the science.

Not so fast, said RealClimate in 2005.

Please note there’s a big difference between the solar minimum of the 11 year (actually 9 – 14 year) solar sunspot cycle and a Maunder Minimum, when there are virtually no sunspots for many decades. The last Maunder Minimum put Europe in the fridge for about 40 years. Or so some people believe…. the deep freeze can also be attributed to the stalling of the thermohaline current, which might or might not have something to do with the sun.  I am seeing the ‘problem with climate change’ as not being so much a problem with the planet as a problem with interpreting what’s going on around us.
The scientific problem (how do prove that we know what is happening by developing successful predictive models) is  aggravated by bumps in the research road.  Human beings a) live for about 80 years and we’re trying to see patterns that are godlike in duration and grandeur, b) see patterns where none may be, c) fail to see patterns because they’re too close to a problem and d) hold opinions and field arguments for reasons which may line up with their breeding rights and status rather than the facts in the case.

So is the earth getting warmer?  Well, yeah. Ice doesn’t melt without getting warmer, and 2007 was a f*cking catastrophe for glaciers and polar ice.  But in ten years of bad weather we could get every cubic inch of that ice back and then some; this winter was an interesting study for me in how very minor changes in weather patterns and temperatures can make immense differences in snowfall.  East Van got rain!  I got 1 foot of snow – twice!  (And had to clean it off the f*cking CAN car, both times, but I’m from Ontario and I am used to cleaning a foot of wet snow off cars.)

The debate goes on, but I have one plea for the boffins – please continue to work on food crop seeds which can deal with temperature and moisture extremes, because I suspect that will do more good for humanity than arguing about what kinds of spots the sun finds fashionable this year.

I am toasting almonds for biscotti.

The landpeer will be showing the apartment starting Monday, so I gotta tidy up.

If I were Al Swearengen

I did a video of this song last night. I roll my eyes like a cartoon character when I’m performing! Meep! Now I know the horrible secret, my mother didn’t give birth to a little pink wrinkled thing she GAVE BIRTH TO A CARTOON CHARACTER. No wonder I’m terrified of Dip! Alert the Media. Anyway, I’ve tried and tried and tried to post it to my website, and I can’t. I’m gonna wait until Glenn comes over and walks me through FTP again, because I’m OBVIOUSLY doing something wrong, something simple to do with the naming of it, or I’m putting it in the wrong folder. Then I will post it. It’s not good enough for Youtube (a low standard to be sure as Doc Filk would say) but it’s good enough for a giggle among friends, so ping me if you want to see it; the quicktime video is about 4 megs and it’s 3:35.

There is snow. So much f*cking snow. It’s unbelievagable.

Ack. Fast fo;ward to June 23, and I DID so post it to Youboob. Heavy sigh. But I’m commenting it, and that makes it oddly better.

Big big big shout out to Mike

He picked up the massage table for me…. Me happy!!!!!!  Kopper gets to get pummelled/try it out first, unless somebody sweet talks me into letting them cut ahead in line.

Life is sweet and gorgeous.  I was SINGING TONIGHT.  The teacher (Ms. Taylor, and a sweet little gal she is, too) ACTUALLY TAUGHT ME TO BREATHE better than anybody else who has ever instructed me.  Either that or I actually have something like an attention span and some motivation for a change.  Kopper says she has no rhythm but she was the only one in our section who could bring the last part of this Brazilian Samba Round in on time.  Life is indeed sweet and gorgeous.

What is with the WIND?  It is like blowing a berloody gale up here and the wind is so biting it’s alive.

Snow and fog

There’s another FOUR INCHES on the ground up here.  You can barely see across the street. Tanya from work just called me on my cell to tell me it’s slippery as hell so I gotta burn ass out of here to work – she says nobody is even answering on switchboard, which sucks at 7:30 am.