Category Archives: drear

drear, fall, weather

The Drear and the Darkness

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The last couple of days have been dull and dreary with clouds and occasional skiffs of snow, highs in the low 40s and lows in the teens. Typical fall weather for around here. Because it has been staying above freezing for the daylight hours, the snow is now mostly gone and we are back to the dull drear of fall in the period once the leaves have fallen. There is still a hint of green in the grass and the sagebrush is turning brown, but that too will soon fade. Somewhat like this:

(Picture from UC Collection)

L went skiing for her inaugural run of the year yesterday. That means she was both happy and stiff and sore last night when I talked to her. (Ibuprofen was invented for aging baby boomers. {*grin*}) The interesting point was that it was blowing and snowing up there – pretty much the standard weather in the mountains from now until spring. Right now, it is both colder and snowier in the mountains than out here on the plains. L proclaims that it is now winter in the mountains in spite of what the calendar says. At least it can look pretty:

(The glow of Breckenridge in winter.)

Which brings me to one of the things I dislike about this season – the decreasing amount of daylight and advancing time of darkness as we approach the winter solstice on December 21. Sunset is already at 4:35pm and will get progressively earlier as time rolls on. I really dislike the coming weeks when it is dark by 3:30 – it is depressing. It is even worse in the mountains where the valley walls cut the sunlight off even earlier. I often wonder how people who live at far northern (or southern for that matter) latitudes handle it. Days with no hours of sunlight seem like they would be really hard to endure. On the other hand, the shortening days seem to be ideal weather for soup. {*grin*}

Time to get on with real work.

drear, misc, politics

Manic Monday

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A dreary day today, especially as L departed back to the mountains this morning. Not only is Molly dog laying around looking like the world has ended, it was drear and overcast until this afternoon when the sun peaked out. I love the oddity of the weather at this time of year. Saturday was warm (60’s) and sunny, Sunday was overcast and cool (30’s). Forecast is for Thursday to hit 70 followed by snow and cold on Friday. Must be March in Colorado.

Tomorrow is precinct caucus day here. That assures entertainment for the evening as I attend my local precinct caucus meeting. The caucii (which sounds better that caucuses even if wrong) don’t have a huge impact on local office seekers like me. The caucuses feed into the county caucus which does little beyond determining ballot listing order for the primary ballot for local offices. So all the effort and dirty work and fund raising and … come up in June and July. Looks to be fun.

(For those who don’t remember, I threw my hat into the ring for the office of county commissioner a while back. It is my first foray into partisan politics. Non-partisan political offices like mayor just require the signature of 50 voters and then waiting for the election. It’s a bit different once the donkey and elephant get involved.)

Back to preparing documents for a Thursday meeting related to construction of our new facility (for my day job as executive director of the humane society). I’ll leave you with a quip I heard on during a conference call today:

Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings.

Can you tell I’ve been talking to construction contractors?

drear, weather

The Day That Wasn’t

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It was a dull and dreary day here today. In a rarity for the region, it was cloudy and overcast all day, making it look like it was twilight even at noon. It finally even broke down and drizzled a little late in the day. So of course, the thermometer hung at a lowly 42 all day and didn’t get energized at all. A perfect day to watch football on TV and take a walk in the dark breeze.

Molly thought it was dreary as well – after getting up this morning when I did, she quickly snuck back into the master bedroom and curled up in the corner to sleep for another few hours. Seeing her curled up there brought to mind one of the questions I have been pondering: Do dogs tell time by the amount of light? I suspect that dogs do indeed tell time by degree of lightness. As evidence, consider the following. I normally give Molly her doggie treat at around 8pm. All summer was not a problem and Molly was very good at knowing the right time to appear with baited breath. Now as it is been getting dark earlier and earlier, Molly has begun nudging me when it is about the same degree of darkness as 8 in the summer (meaning as early as 5:45 now). Then she repairs to the laundry room and sits and stares at the cabinet with the treats. Every time I tell her “No, it is too early.”, she goes and lays down for 15 minutes and then repeats the process. Finally, when it reaches 8pm or I get tired of the game (which ever comes first) I give her her treat and literally make her day. It will be interesting to see if the process reverses itself when spring rolls around.

At least the Broncos won today. I was about to give up after the first half when it looked like the Broncos were clueless. But the second half was a much better game and I was glad I watched. I tend not to be a rabid rooter for any one team, but instead applaud the team that is playing really good football. That goes for college as well as pro games. I tend to like college football a bit more since there is more uncertainty and the level of play depends greatly on the motivational skills of the coach with all the hormones floating around at that age. Enough ranting about that.

It is time to clean up the kitchen since I cooked egg plant tonight and made a bit of a mess. It was an interesting meal – salad, egg plant sliced and dipped in egg and seasoned breading and then fried, and some plain steamed brown rice. It was tasty, but I wasn’t motivated to get it all cleaned up earlier, so now I need to get to it so I can head for the bed.

drear, seasons, weather

Seasonal Drear

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Today is one of those dreary late fall days when the weather can’t decide if it wants to be winter or fall. The sun was hidden and the breeze was just enough to make it feel cool. The lonely retreating feeling of the world at this time of year coupled with the change back to standard time makes the days feel miserable and short. At least I have the honor of knowing that I m not alone in feeling this way. Molly and I saw no one out walking when we went to the park late in the afternoon. Most days we see an assortment of people when we mosey out for our trek. I guess they were all buried inside bemoaning the drear of the day.

Having lived where there were minimal or no seasons (hot and not-so-hot or sunny/rainy don’t count as seasons), I prefer the seasonal change of Colorado. There is something about the renewal of spring with its explosion of green, the days of summer when daylight lasts forever and the nights are warm, the crystalline beauty of winter when the imperfections of the earth are periodically buried in white, and even the early part of fall when the leaves are changing and the harvest is ending. However, I could live without parts of all those seasons. I don’t like the mud season of April when the rains come and the mud sits, I don’t care for the drear days of November and early December when fall is kicking its last. I could happily avoid the couple of weeks in January or February when temperatures fall below zero and stay there for days at a time. And I could happily miss the days of late August when the temperature can hit 110+ during the day. But overall, I’ll live with the parts I don’t like to enjoy the parts I love.

I guess I’ll just have to hope it is a sunny day tomorrow and make the most of it. Time to curl up with a good book for the evening and escape to a different world.