Category Archives: weather

cell phone, monday, rant, weather

Monday Meandering Cell Phone Rant

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This weekend definitely reminded me that fall is on the way. Yesterday it didn’t quite break 70 and was down in the upper 40s last night. Cool enough to close most of the windows and still feel cold this morning. It has already been cool in the mountains for a while, but this is the first hint of true fall down here. It made yesterday a great day to take a late afternoon nap in the cool overcast. Molly and I were batching it alone (What do you call it when a female dog is doing the equivalent of male batching? There must be a term for it.) so we had no trouble snuggling in an sleeping for a couple of hours. There is something about the time of year when a blanket becomes needful that makes sleeping so much better.

L and the Son are both up in the mountains with a cold/virus, so it might be a good thing that L wasn’t able to come home this weekend. (I hope to avoid this cold if possible!) Add in the smoke and haze up there blowing in from the distant California fires and there is a lot of overcast and haze on the ground up there. Needless to say, it hasn’t overjoyed L with the irritation it adds to the effects of the cold. The smoke doesn’t seem to have made it over the mountains and down here in force yet, but there is a bit of haze in the air. It always amazes me how smoke from fires more than a 1000 miles away can appear in the air here. Let’s hear it for the west to east flow of air in the U.S.

Enough about the weather and on with my rant for today.

Starting Saturday and continuing on through today, I have a gained a good argument against giving kids who are a bit young cell phones. A certain young gentleman who seems to have barely made it into his 4’s has been calling repeatedly and inquiring for Marcus. On the times when I’ve answered and explained to the young man that this is not Marcus’s number and suggested he might get his parents to help him find the right number, I’ve gotten a mumbled o’tay followed by a hangup. Of course within an hour or two there is another call from the same youngster on the same cell number asking for Marcus yet again.  I am tempted to call the number back around ten tonight in the hope it will be answered by the person or persons who gave the young man a phone too early in his life. I suspect it would do me no good since it seems that there are a number of parents who haven’t thought through the issues of comprehension and phones for responsible use by youngsters. In a few days, he will undoubtedly tire and quit calling.

From my curmudgeonly point of view, if you are going to give a cell phone to a youngster too young to responsibly respond to messages when he uses the phone, you might want to set it up so it can call only the parents and maybe the siblings and grandparents. But that idea seldom seems to occur to the sort that might give a 4 year old a cell phone. If you are such a parent, you should consider what kind of emotional trauma might result to junior if he kept calling someone less tolerant than me for three days. If nothing else, he might gain some new and surprising vocabulary words for answering the phone.

Have you ever had the joy of a too young caller? How many 4 and 5 year olds do you know with cell phones?

football, weather

Cool at last …

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Cool at last, cool at last, good gosh almighty, cool at last  … (with apologies to Dr. Martin Luther King for paraphrasing and parodying)

Last night we got more rain, making a total of an inch and a half over two days. Understand that we normally get less that 12-14 inches a year our here. June was one of the wettest Junes on record here. July was pretty wet as well. August is getting up there now too. But that has nothing to do with today’s topic per se. The key is that the rains have been cold and so cooled it off. Today it barely got above 70 and after all the days in the 80-105 range, it is a real cause for celebration.

My friend T calls this time of year (although normally in September) when the nights get cool and the days are comfortably nice as “sleeping weather.” The days are perfect for getting things done; you feel energized with the ebbing of the heat. And the nights, oh my gosh the nights! They cool off and you can sleep the sleep of the dead and finally even use a *blanket*.

As you might guess, this is one of my favorite times of year. It signals the end of the drear heat of summer, but announces the beauty of the Indian summer that is now at hand. Maybe I am too close to the patterns of the weather, but I love the changes as the seasons pass. I especially love this season because it is associated in my mind with the start of football. The agony of practices and the joy of games, all of it. And it also means that we have only a while before frost  followed by real cold weather arrives

So what season is your favorite?

(L is still home and her brother and family are here visiting from Connecticut. L’s niece is preparing to head off to college in a few weeks and it’s fun to hear that excitement from a youngster. It’s also clear that girls and boys look at the process and what is important very differently. Boys seem to be concerned with who has the stereo and who has the xbox and … Girls seem to worry about things that most boys don’t think about – like what color themes for the room and which roomie is bring the iron and … 

Life will be returning to normal tomorrow and maybe I’ll even have a longer post. {*grin*})

monday, weather

Meandering Monday

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Early this morning L headed back to the mountains. A slight difference of climate between the two locales. When we talked this afternoon, it was in the fifties in the mountains but pushing the mid-nineties here on the plains. At least tonight there was no more of the anomalous rain here.

Speaking of rain, it was amusing this morning to count the number of people who drove up along side me as I was walking to banter about the storm of last night. I can’t count the number of people who asked what I did to cause all this rain. I finally fessed up and told them that the rain of last night was due to the fact that I watered my lawn, thus tempting the rain gods. To understand why this is funny, you need to understand that in a normal summer out here you have to water your lawn every other day or so or it turns brown and dies. The watering I did on Sunday afternoon was only the third time I have watered my lawn *all year* this year. Think we have been getting a bit of anomalous moisture?

It was interesting the number of odd calls I got today as well. I’ve never figured out how people always know to call at the most inopportune times. No calls early in the morning, just a couple of emails saying call me about this and that. But the minute I walked outside on my way over to do the morning therapy session with XXX, my phone was busy the entire walk to and from XXX’s. Got back to my office and not another call until in the afternoon. I’ve taken to walking with my cellular headset (I prefer the wired one rather than the blue tooth one) in my ear and plugged in. Makes me suspect there is a lookout posted that tells everyone to call me as soon as I walk out the door.

Supper tonight was packed with things from the garden. Raw turnips, peeled and lightly salted. A salad with fresh picked chopped green onions, Chinese peas, sliced radishes (both white and red), lettuce, and a touch of chopped cucumber. Pretty close to vegetarian if I hadn’t had that macaroon for desert. I am looking forward to later when our cucumbers and peppers start getting ready.

My final meeting of the day was the Boy Scout Troop Committee meeting tonight. Once again the topic was all the rain and weather we’ve been having. Got the real business done along with the normal bs’ing and headed back home in time to see that the Rockies managed to win – must have been because they didn’t have to call on the bull pen.

Molly the dog is still lying around and moping, morning L’s departure. I have faith Molly will be back up to her normal “let’s go, c’mom, let’s go” personality by sunrise. So I guess I’d better head for the bed so I can be ready when she is. Nothing is worse than the smell of doggie breath and a mouth full of fur when she jumps up on the side of the bed to make sure you are getting with the program and you aren’t up yet. Goodnight.

Fourth of July, garden, weather

The Partially Eventful Weekend

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The Fourth of July was a generally good weekend here. It kicked off on Friday with the reception opening the Heritage Festival and beginning the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the city. I was fortunate enough to limit my official engagements this weekend to just a quickie at the reception. We handed out a neat covered wagon doodad to those who attended the reception:

 
  
 (Of course we also gave the attendees a wooden nickel.)
After the reception, L and I headed on over to our friends for a BBQ. Brats, burgers, red hots, and sausage off the grill plus shrimp and fresh fruit and chips of many kinds plus dips and vegetables – then topped off by pie and pistachio cake. Luckily we were seated in the garage, since the skies dumped yet another unseasonable rain shower during the evening. It was a great time sitting around and eating, talking to friends, and generally just relaxing. It is especially poignant because the male half of the couple is going to be having some pretty serious spinal surgery later in the month and it isn’t clear when he’ll up and about following the surgery. (We’ve known each other since grade school – so I know he doesn’t handle being on bed rest well. This will be interesting, to say the least.) At the close of the evening, L and I walked home and sat back to let all the food settle.
The 4th itself was pretty much a day to ourselves except for XXX’s therapy. So we mowed the lawn and trimmed the bushes and (of course!) pulled the weeds. Got cleaned up early in the evening and journeyed over to Mom’s where the MIL, L and I had a nice 4th of July supper. L and her mother went to watch the city fireworks display while Mom and I visited and I got ready to bring the leftovers home. On the way home, I saw some of the municpal fireworks display just as yet another unusal rain shower set in. Got home in time to see the Rockies blow it from the bull pen once again. That has to hurt to be a starting pitcher and see the bull pen come in and lose it time after time.
Today we had XXX’s therapy, I put in a new dryer vent for the MIL and then we ate lunch at the MIL’s. Then in the afternoon, I picked up Mom and we went over to the home of one of my childhood friends (the hosue is now occupied by his brother) and cut a bunch of rhubarb – probably a couple of gallons worth anyway. Then we came back to Mom’s and pulled radishes and turnips from the garden, then sat on the front porch topping and chopping before we took it all in to wash. Along the way I got to take Mom’s vacuum apart and replace a belt. During this time L was back at our house cleaning. So when I got home she wanted to head out for the Rockies Tacos (although they lost, they did score the requisite 7 runs for Taco Bell and Rockies Tacos). As we came home, the sky was starting to look a bit vicious, but it looked like it was north of us and weather here generally moves to the north.
Needless to say, the vicious weather didn’t move north. First the wind came up, then the tornado warning sirens fired up, followed by the police and fire trucks running up and down the streets, running their bullhorns telling people that there was a warning and to take cover, followed by the skies opening up and water coming down in sheets. For almost an hour, the sirens fired anew with each new warning. (Not all tornado warnings!) The warning I thought most unique was “Urban Flash Flood Warning” about midway through the whole process. It was raining so hard and fast that the streets and yards were literally flooding since the water arriving was more than could be drained.
After all the excitement settled down (No known tornado touchdown, only some wind and water damage.) life returned to normal about 25 degrees cooler. Some trees lost limbs in the area, but our major damage was simply the blown over basketball hoop. An hour or two after the all clear, it looked like this:

I set it back up and then looked up to see one of the biggest rainbows I’ve ever seen around here. Pardon my spectacularly poor photography, but hopefully you can see what I’m talking about.

birds, weather

The Birds

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Today we had another late in the day weather change from sunny to thunderstorms and windy, marking the onset of some cooler weather. It is only supposed to get to 60 or so tomorrow. Oh well, summer can wait.

One of the curiosities that has always made me scratch my head is the way birds like to settle on telephone wires before a storm arrives. It is not uncommon to see 10 or more between a couple of utility poles, just sitting there very quietly as the storm builds and approaches. Many times, the silent sitting birds are the first warning of an impending storm. Then the sky begins to darken and the clouds begin to explode into thunderheads and the lightning begins to flash. And if we are lucky out here, it also rains.

Now if I were a bird, I can’t picture why I’d go out and sit on a high wire with no cover if I thought it was going storm. Why sit on a high, wet wire in a rain and lightning storm? But the birds do it. I’ve always wondered how hard it is to stay anchored by a pair of slick claws to a smooth and possibly wet sheath of insulation. I think I’d be cramped up tight after hanging on for the 45 minutes it takes for the wind and the lightning to pass. And you notice that you never see one of the birds hanging on to the wire upside down. That tells me they must have one heck of a grip on the wire.

So today as the thunderstorm brewed and I headed over to do XXX’s therapy, I pondered the birds sitting on the phone wires and what a strange life it must be. I know that sometimes the wind becomes too much for the birds: they are the ones found dead on the ground after the storm. I also know that just as soon as the wind has calmed a bit, they are off and flying around. The robins are on the ground trying to catch the earthworms forced to the surface by the sudden downpour of water. The crows head off to scrounge for their favorite foods. And I am left to wonder how and why they do it.