The Winter Storm Aftermath, Sort Of

For the past few days, the local forecast called for a potentially serious winter storm starting yesterday, and a winter storm we indeed got. Thankfully, for most of us in the area, it stopped short of being terribly serious. The severest issue in our area was vehicle accidents last night as the roads became slippery, and I've heard reports of a handful of power outages. We've kept ours, at least so far; around here, it's typical to weather the worst of a storm without problem, but when it's all over with, then the power goes out. The temperature dropped well below freezing early last night, but it's on the rise this morning, and right now, the snow and ice have become mostly slush.

I went out for my usual morning ramble and took a few pics around Lake Lanier, just down the street.

Big Honking Winter Weather

It's supposed to be a big honking weather event today and tomorrow, starting with snow and ending with ice, which is not a good combo for the power staying on and trees not smashing your house. The snow started about 1 p.m., at first just flurries, but shortly thereafter, it began falling in earnest, and I swear to Yog, these are the biggest snowflakes I've ever seen. Many of them are four to five inches wide, and it went from almost no accumulation to four inches of accumulation in about an hour. In the photo above, you can kinda see the big-ass flakes, but the photo certainly doesn't do them justice. These are definitely Godzilla-sized.

The forecast calls for freezing rain later, which is a really bad finish for several inches of snow. I really do hope the power stays on, and—even more than that—that no trees around the house decide to give up the ghost because some of these fuckers are big, as in house-whomping B-I-G. Now, I do love these woods around here, and we had reputable firm do a health check on the biggest of the trees a while back, which reassured me that we're probably okay, at least for the foreseeable future. Still, this past year, a falling tree totally demolished a house not too far up the road, and that's not the kind of thing I wanna see up close and personal.

Anyhoo, I had some writing to finish up this afternoon, so to complement the work, I made myself a lovely smoked Old Fashioned, using the smoker Ms. Brugger gave me last Christmas, with a skull ice cube, made with the mold she gave this Christmas. For the moment, at least, I have a warm house and a good drink. We'll just have to see what develops over the next 24 hours.

Before any of the weather started, I took down all the Christmas decorations, including the lights around the trees I had put up in the woods. Now I kinda wish I'd at least left the ones in the woods because they'd have looked fooking cool in the snow tonight.

If ice begins accumulating before bedtime tonight, I might just sleep downstairs, for whatever good that might do should the worst happen.

Feels Like Michigan

But no. It's still the South, just mighty cold, with a fair bit of snow. Actually, when Ms. B. and I were in Michigan last week, NC and VA got hit with a much bigger snowstorm than we got up north. Happily, home was spared any damage or power outages, unlike many others in the area. Since we got back, amid the fairly busy work and writing schedules, I've managed to fit in at least a bit of geocaching, which has been most welcome since it's about the only meaningful outdoor exercise I've been able to get.

Yesterday, I headed to Mayodan, for a five-stage multi-cache at Farris Memorial Park, which I had apparently visited while caching a few years back, but I have very little memory of the experience. Clearly, I am much older now. It was freaking freezing out there, with a bitter wind; not very different from my caching experiences in Michigan last week. Fortunately, at each stage of the multi I was able to take photos of the necessary clues and solve each puzzle in the relatively warm car. The final stage was a pretty good ways out in the woods, but at least amid the trees, the wind wasn't so fierce. I rather enjoyed the hike out and back.

Today, the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars — friend Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott), friend Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie), and I — headed down to China Grove, just this side of Charlotte, for a day of it, mostly at Lake Corriher. Once again, the temperature started out Michigan-like, but at least it warmed up a bit over the course of the day. We put in a good many miles on the trails, then headed into downtown China Grove for lunch (No Way José's Mexican Restaurant, where I et some killer street tacos), an Adventure Lab cache, and a few other assorted hides. All in all, a very fine couple of days of it — marred only by a particularly obnoxious health issue that keeps cropping in my old age. It doesn't thrill me.

Anyhoo, that's that for that, so until next time.

The No-Dead-Weight Irregulars: Old Rodan, Not-So-Old Natalie, Very Old Diefenbaker

View down the trail from the high ground at Lake Corriher

Heading across the inlet at Lake Corriher

Winter Storms, Blogger Fuckery, Historic Churches, and Smoked Cow

Immediately upon our return from Myrtle Beach last weekend, dire weather fell upon us. We had only a light coating of snow, but there was ice aplenty and winds like I've not heard since the last hurricane to blow through here some years ago. We lost power at 4:00 a.m. Monday morning, though it came back on about noon — some kind of speed record for Duke Energy. Our yard became a mess of branches and sticks, but next door, a whole tree uprooted and fell. It remained as you see it in the photo above for several days, until finally, this weekend, the neighbors took it upon themselves to get rid of it. Rather than call professionals — an admittedly expensive prospect — they employed a couple of friends, a pair of electric chainsaws (one of which got stuck in the tree for a day or so), an assortment of wooden boards, a footstool, and a pickup truck (which got stuck in the mud in their backyard for a day or so). 

"Maybe if we put this over here, and that over there...?"

At this point, the chainsaw is stuck in the tree, and the truck is stuck in the mud.

On Friday afternoon, I headed to Martinsville while the trio of men were out there working, so I didn't get to see how things eventually unfolded. But when I arrived back here yesterday, the tree was gone. The fence between yards (which I believe actually belongs to the neighbors behind the next-door folk) failed to escape damage (relatively minor), and there are deep ruts and mud splatters aplenty in their backyard (and part of ours). However, to the best of my knowledge — and by some minor miracle — none of the guys out there suffered death or dismemberment. I guess you'd call that a win for do-it-yourselfing.

More snow fell in Martinsville than here in Greensboro, but there appeared to be less ice and far less property damage. I have no idea whether it was actually storm-related or not, but the heat pump at Pleasant Hill had ceased the pumping of heat, so I found the house rather chilly. Yesterday morning, I managed to engage a service tech, who determined the system needed a new thermostat. He installed one, which got the heat pump working again, but a most complicated device, this thermostat. I hope I can figure it out without needing to go back to school to get an engineering degree. In any event, I managed to get the Christmas decorations taken down and finish up a significant writing project, which I'll be promoting the hell out of in the coming days.

St. Matthew's Episcopal Church
in Hillsborough

Since today's weather, at least for the morning, appeared conducive to geocaching, three old farts — Scott (a.k.a. Diefenbaker), Old Rob (a.k.a. Old Rob), et moi — decided to head eastward to several different locations, culminating in Hillsborough, where a new Adventure Lab cache awaited us. First, we headed to the Haw River Trail in Graham to see if we could snag first-to-find honors on a newly published hide (we did); then we zoomed over to a nearby park & grab hide, of which we made very short work; and finally, we moved on to Hillsborough. The Adventure Lab cache ("Historical Churches of Hillsborough") took us around the town's picturesque historical district, to... guess what... several historical churches. Hillsborough is a lovely town to walk around, and we enjoyed the opportunity to see the sights (again).

We topped off our Hillsborough outing with a visit to Hillsborough BBQ Company, which is a longstanding tradition when we're over in that neck of the woods. I'm a smoked beef brisket junkie, and Hillsborough BBQ Company has historically had some of the best brisket I've ever tasted. Some time ago — over a year, I'm guessing — we had visited to find the brisket not quite up to snuff. Not bad, just not top-notch. Someone we met on another caching trip told us that the restaurant had changed their smoking time or process or something, but the brisket was definitely inferior. Regardless, I wanted to make sure they had another chance, and this time around, it was better. Much better. Maybe not quite what it used to be (and certainly not as eyes-rolling-back-in-the-head-incredible as The Smoke Pit in Salisbury, which is now our favorite brisket venue), but we were altogether satisfied. Plus I found a really good, jalapeno IPA (Fire Escape, Asheville Brewing Company). So Hillsborough BBQ is most definitely back in my good graces (not that it ever fell very far).

But speaking of falling far....

The most frustrating — no, infuriating — issue of the weekend was discovering that Blogger (and by default, Google) fucked up my blog in numerous instances by their constant altering of code. At one time, formatting this blog, including placing photos (for which one might have a reasonable expectation of being permanent, since they're from Google's own blog photo hosting site) was simple. You could pop a photo in, place it as you desired, look at the html code, and see the photo ID in the code. No longer. Now you get typical Google Photos gobbledygook for the ID, leaving you with no way to trace it back to its origin. But the worst issue here was that a shitload of my blog photos, mostly from 2017, now displayed only broken link images. So I ended up spending a massive amount of time replacing and relinking the pics — with no guarantee the code will actually hold. Jesus God...  this constant ABSOLUTELY GODDAMN NEEDLESS fucking around with the blog code by bunch of technological halfwits is so infuriating, if it were up to me, I'd shitcan the lot of them (the decision makers, anyway) and make sure not a one of them could work in a technological environment ever again. Maybe cleaning shit out of pigpens would be more suitable.

Anyway. Go on, git. Bye.

Three Old Farts: Old Rodan, Old Diefenbaker, Old Rob

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night!

In front of my house about 9:00 p.m. last night. The wall of snow and ice to the right is over two feet high.

To no one's surprise, after 15+ inches of snow, with sleet on top of it, the power went pow! about 10:30 p.m. last night. I had anticipated this very thing, so I had lanterns, flashlights, candles, extra food & drink, blankets, cats, etc. to get through an indoor cold spell. Sure enough, the house turned frigid overnight, but at least the bed stayed warm (bundles of cats help a lot). Yesterday morning, I had made a huge pot of coffee in case the power went out earlier in the day, but then I neglected to make more later. And irony of ironies, I had just thought to do so when electricity vacated the premises last night.

Happily, not long after I got up this morning, electricity returned to Casa de Rodan, and so far has hung around. Hopefully for the long haul. First order of business: brew bucket loads of coffee. The office is closed for the rest of the day, also happily, since getting out on the road is a virtual impossibility, and even if it were possible, highly unsafe. So, barring another power outage, it'll be a good day to make a prodigious amount of progress in Michigan: The Dragon of Lake Superior, my next entry in Elizabeth Massie's Ameri-Scares series.

You people in the affected area stay safe and warm. Things are going to re-freeze tonight.

The Rodan mobile, parked for the duration.

T'ain't Fit for Man Nor Beast....

I may end up snowbound for some time. The big winter storm that came in last night dropped a good 10 inches overnight, and it's still piling up. Right now, it's mostly sleet, but it keeps changing out there. Eventually, this is supposed to turn to freezing rain, which is when the power is most likely to go out. So far, so good here, although there are reports of outages here and there.

There's no way in hell my little car's going to be getting out of my driveway until there's been plowing and considerable melting, which shan't likely be happening in the next 24 hours. I trust the office powers-that-be will have the decency and good sense to just close the office tomorrow. Nohing our company produces is worth risking life, limb, and property for a day at work. I believe it was three years ago that my car got banged up real good by another vehicle that went out of control—and I narrowly avoided getting banged up myself—due to having to drive in conditions where no person with a lick have sense should have been out there. I love my day job, but only up to a point....

It's getting darker and deeper out there even now. The big old flakes are back. I'm stocked up with supplies, but I so hope to keep power through all these. Else it's gonna be a cold, cold time.

About 11:00 a.m. this morning

About ten inches came down overnight, and it's not supposed to stop till tomorrow.

Shiver me beeches!

Snow Day

First snowstorm of the season... and it's a-coming down. The office is open, but driving 20 miles one-way, twice, in this mess—especially after having my old Buick bashed up on just such a day a few years back—just isn't prudent. It's just snow, not ice, so theoretically, the electricity stands a better-than-average chance of staying on, but this is Greensboro...so hoping against hope for the best.

For now, got Kats and Krankies. That's all good.

Ice Blossoms

The obligatory snow selfie. I feel impelled
to watch The Shining.

A nice big snowfall last night and this morning. So far, it's one of those where it's just snow, rather than that god-awful mix of snow and ice that takes out the power, which is what we more frequently get around here.

Here's a semi-random snow story from way back when....

After graduating from UGA in December 1981, I spent a little over a year in Martinsville, trying to make enough money to move to Chicago, which I eventually did, mostly by selling my artwork and teaching art. All the while, I entertained myself and tortured others by playing guitar, singing, and writing original music (I still occasionally torture others with this very endeavor; in fact, next Friday, 1/13/17, I'll be playing at The Daily Grind in Martinsville). It was one night in either late '82 or early '83 when we had a pretty big snowfall, and I went out walking in the neighborhood, and by the time I got back home, many hours later, I had the lyrics to a new song, called "Ice Blossoms," composed in my head. It's about freezing to death, and I plan to play it at The Daily Grind next week.

At the time, my brother, Phred, was seeing a young lady named Leslie, and earlier that evening he'd driven up to her house, a mile or so away. I decided to take a walk in that general direction, figuring that I'd eventually run into him on his way home, and he could give me a ride back. Well, I got as far as the corner of her street, and he still hadn't left, so, being the adventurous soul I was (and still strive to be), I found myself a tall tree that offered a good view of the neighborhood and climbed up it — way up it, figuring I'd be able to spot my brother's car coming well in advance.

I sat up in that tree for at least an hour, freezing my hind end off, eventually questioning the wisdom of my decision and wondering whether I should just get down and walk back home.

No. No, no. I sat up there well into the wee hours, at least partially bolstered by select botanical compounds I'd had the foresight to bring with me. By the time I finally saw my brother's car coming, I had the following lyrics firmly in my head, and the accompanying music written by the next afternoon.

Ice Blossoms
Wind in your hair, the snow in your eyes,
Feeling the chill of a cold winter's night.
Breathing the air brought by winds of the north,
Ice blossoms blooming forever.

Clear songs from forests a-glaze under ice,
Joining the spirits who dance in the night,
Who call to you in a crystal clear voice,
Reaching your soul from the nether.

Snowfall soft, open your eyes aloft,
You feel no cold, no pain. Open your eyes again.
There is no fear of the night, only hope inside.
There is a song calling you, so strong.

Then, in the sky, colors dance, glowing bright.
And your lifeline's gone. Spirits howl their song.
Colors bright.

Ice blossoms blooming in cold morning light.
Forests breathe songs that arise to the sky.
Standing alone torn by winds of the north,
Silently brooding forever.

Eyes dead and glazed under snowfall so fine,
Hands clutching nothing thrown wild at your sides.
Spirit has gone with your brothers of ice,
Singing your sad song forever.

 #

Fortunately, I didn't freeze to death, but I was probably as close to hypothermia as I've ever come. Mighty cold in that tree, I was.

Today's snow, so far, has been pretty, and I took an enjoyable mile-long walk through the neighborhood this morning while it was still coming down. Currently, there's about nine inches of accumulation. No ice blossoms.

"Ice Blossoms," ©1982, 2017, by Stephen Mark Rainey

The homestead as the snow falls

L: devilish hoofprints leading to my back door? R: Corner of Martin Ave. and Wilcox Dr.

I had never noticed there was a little footbridge — now half-collapsed — over a stream,
a short distance down the street

A little hidden glen near Martin Ave.

Heading north on Martin Ave., toward Pine Needle Dr.

Be My Frozen Valentine

Kimberly and I had our celebratory Valentine's dinner on Friday night, which was fortunate, since, at the moment, the weather has taken a rather icy turn. This was my weekend to go to Martinsville to help Mum, so Friday, on our way up, we had a fine, fine dinner at The Celtic Fringe in Reidsville, one of our favorite bistros in the area. Why, of course there was a cache to grab on the way; in fact, there we ran into our local caching legend, Mr. Tom "Night-hawk" Kidd himself. For Valentine's Day, Ms. B. presented me with one of her custom, handmade cards, which she enjoys creating (see above), along with a very cool cast iron bat — the critter, not the club — to hang on my wall. (Apparently, her dad picked it out and told her, "This is Mark." Nice one, Delmar.) After dinner, we headed on to Mom's, and after taking care of some business affairs, Kimberly and I settled in to enjoy a bit more wine and a few episodes of The Walking Dead.

"It's a trap!"

And since then, it's been a busy weekend. Yesterday, I spent the morning dealing with Mum's affairs, and then Kimberly and I headed out for Stonefield Cellars Winery in Stokesdale, where we met up with some friends to sample a few particularly enjoyable wines. Why, yes... funny you should ask... yes, I did stop for a cache, at Belews Lake. Then there were more friends, more refreshment, and, finally, the journey home, where I narrowly escaped being mauled (see accompanying photo).

This morning, I woke early to a telltale buzz from my phone, and in a sleepy haze I thought, "Well, that might be a new cache notification." For the next half eon, I lay there in the twilight zone, unwilling to reach beyond that two feet of void for the phone. Some passage of time later, I finally did this thing, and — sure enough — it's a new cache, practically right up the street. I struggled into my shoes, started down the stairs, and realized my attire was inadequate for stepping out of my front door. With some effort, I remedied the situation, and off I went, stopping along the way to grab some coffee at the nearest convenience store.

I arrived at the specified parking coordinates and noticed the temperature on my car dash read 15 freakin' degrees. Now I'm thinking this is one of those times when I might not be quite right in my head. Then, just as I start making my way to the trail head, a vehicle pulls up, and — looky — it's Mr. Feathered Friends. With some grumbles about the temperature, we headed for ground zero, about a quarter mile down this very nice, very frozen trail. Once there, a particular spot caught my eye, and I gave it a cursory examination, only to find nothing. I checked a couple of other places, but the GPS kept bringing me back to my original search site. I looked again and — ah, but yes! — the cache is there after all, very well-concealed. Opened the container and, with near-frozen fingers, fumbled my way into the log. Blank! So, Feathered Friends and I dirtied it up, snagging a nice co-first-to-find at 8:15 AM. A nice, if frigid way to start the day.

T'ain't a fit night out for man nor beast!

And tonight, here comes the snow. It wasn't supposed to begin till after midnight, but about 7:15, I paused War of the Gargantuas, glanced outside, and saw white. Now, I gotta tell you, Greensboro has a lousy track record for keeping the power on in even mildly adverse weather. Since the forecast calls for some freezing rain tomorrow, I figured I might ought to run up to the store and grab some fire logs. So I drove to Harris Teeter, which was, quite naturally, very crowded; I grabbed some fire logs and a few other items, and came out to find the snow coming down in earnest, along with a rather significant amount of accumulation. I could tell right away this was going to be a slippery one, and — oh, lord — it came so close to being a repeat of that fateful storm almost exactly two years ago (see "The Great White Beast," February 12, 2014) that I damn near kissed the snowy ground when I got back into my driveway. And when I say I barely made it, I exaggerate not even a smidgen. There were cars sliding all over the hill down the road from my house, and at least one went into the adjacent ditch. The driver did manage to get out of there, but once I arrived safely home (fifty feet from my driveway, I still had doubts), I walked down the street and watched as one car after another narrowly escaped disaster. For all I know, there may be a disaster — or one brewing — down there right now.

Me, I'm just hoping the power stays on. I already went through several days of icy temperatures in my own house a couple of weeks back, and I'd like to not go through it again, thank you very much.

Do be safe.

When It Rains...

Any idea what you're looking at in the photo? No? It's a handy-dandy little improvised space heater, the idea of which I got from Brugger, who is something of a dilettante in matters of do-it-yourself and crafty things, last year when the power went out. You take a heat-conducting basin of sorts, a grill or other surface that allows air to pass through; a small candle, which rests on the grill; and a clay pot. Then you set them all up to create the contraption shown above. Right now, I'm sitting with this apparatus next to my chair in my office, and the heat radiating up through the hole in the base of the pot, while hardly considerable, is definitely noticeable.

As it is, here I sit, snow and iced in, my car broken, and my heat pump suddenly gone out. For the moment, at least, I still have electricity, but this is Greensboro, so I have no idea how long this fair fortune will continue. Don't know what happened to the heat pump, but it doesn't appear to be the circuit breaker or the fuses. Had a similar issue just a few months back, so I shall be taking it up with Central Carolina Heat and Air, whenever they can get someone out here. I know it won't be today, so I'm looking forward to at least one very cold night.

As yet there's maybe three inches of snow on the ground, with sleet falling, and possibly freezing rain yet to come. Perhaps with the above contraption nearby and a couple of cats to bundle up with, I'll avoid turning into an icicle.

Ice In, Lights Out

The third significant winter storm in as many weeks here in the North Carolina Piedmont, this one resulting in over 400,000 people in the area losing power, over 100,000 of whom have yet to have it restored. It's been many years since I've seen so much damage from ice in this area. My electricity was out from early Friday morning until the middle of the evening last night (Saturday), and I was clearly one of the lucky ones; Duke Power is anticipating it taking until Wednesday or Thursday to get all power in the region back on. In only a few hours, over four inches of heavy slush accumulated at my place, and I knew it was going to be a rough one when I could hear trees cracking and falling with such regularity it sounded like a gunfight outside. I took the picture at left a few seconds after a pair of tall pines — from that bunch in the distance in the center of the photo — came crashing down (unfortunately, the zoom on my phone camera makes the image rather blurry, but you can click on the photos to enlarge them). I did lose one medium-size cedar at the corner of my house, which can be seen in the first photo below. That first day, I was pretty well stuck in my house, since I couldn't have gotten the car out of the driveway if I had wanted to (not that I wanted to). Once I got out yesterday, I got a first-hand look at how much damage there was. In places, there were still more power lines down than remaining up, and several roads were closed because of trees falling across them.

On the positive side, even though I had not intentionally stocked up on supplies before this storm, I had plenty of food, cats for warmth, and martini fixings to keep my spirits up. I rather enjoyed cooking breakfast and making coffee on the grill out on the front porch yesterday morning; it was just like camping out, only not. Since we missed work on Friday, Brugger decided to go into the office yesterday, so I went in as well and got some writing done on my current short story, which fits firmly into Robert W. Chambers' King in Yellow mythos.

Mess with Mother Nature, and she'll whomp you a good one, that's for sure. Stay warm, peoples.

But lord, I hate the onset of Daylight Saving Time....

Those low shrubs to the left aren't low shrubs; those ordinarily stand about 12 feet tall.
The cedar on the corner was uprooted, and I had to take it down completely today.

On Willowlake Road in Guilford County yesterday evening. There weren't many
power lines left intact along this stretch of road.

Another shot along Willowlake Road. That big tree is cracked about halfway up and
leans out over the road. I'd hate to be underneath it when it falls.

The Great White Beast

Evening serenity at Casa de Rodan

It's a perfect blend of anger, frustration, relief, and thankfulness.

If you're anywhere in the southeast, you're probably feeling the brunt of the winter storm even now. It's been on the schedule for several days, and it moved into NC's Piedmont Triad about one o'clock this afternoon. It's not as if there weren't plenty of warning and adequate time to prepare and adjust schedules accordingly. And after the recent debacle in Atlanta, and other southern areas that simply aren't accustomed to extreme winter weather, you'd think communities would have their proverbial houses in order. Yeah. Sure thing.

Right after lunch, I saw it was getting rapidly white outside — a very slick white, based on the behavior of the motor vehicles in the parking lot. My gut told me, leave now because it's going to be a beast out there in a short while. Word came down that the office would close at 2:30 PM. Another hour or so. Now, at my workplace, if you don't feel safe in adverse weather conditions, there's no problem using personal time to leave. But I decided to be a good trooper and finish out the day.

Well, no good deed goes unpunished. Apparently, every business in town had decided to release the horde at the same time. As soon as I hit the main road home, I found myself in a parking lot. No movement. Gridlock. Snow was gathering so fast while I sat in one spot that every time I did manage to inch forward, the tires spun. It's usually a 15-minute drive to and from work. I lucked out at 90, but not without mishap. I made it to within 400 feet of my house, to the intersection at the bottom of the hill where, during the last icy spell we had, just a couple of weeks ago, there was a rather scenic five-car pile-up.

It had happened again. Another car had come down the hill, slid, and smashed into the trees across the intersection. An officer and a tow truck were on the scene, completely blocking the longer but safer route around to my house. The car in front of me opted to go up the hill. The very steep, very slippery hill. If the driver had just kept going, he would have made it. But he slid a bit and, apparently unnerved, decided to stop. Bad move. From a standstill, when he tried to get going again, his tires started spinning. Then the car began sliding backward — right toward me, waiting at the bottom of the hill.

With the tow truck, police car, and several cars behind me, I had limited options. I threw it into reverse, pulled as far to the side of the road as I dared. Up the hill, the errant vehicle was still sliding toward me and gathering momentum. The driver at least had the presence of mind to turn the wheel so the car was coming down sideways. Knowing now a collision was inevitable, I turned as tight as I could, maneuvering so the passenger side was to him. My only thought at the time was at least this wasn't going to injure either of us.

Boom. He hit me broadside, and suddenly my car was moving, the other car pushing mine over the icy road surface with virtually no resistance. Suddenly, I wasn't so sure about that whole non-injury thing. But then, a moment later, we came to rest a few feet from the edge of the crossroad, both cars still perfectly side by side. We got out, checked ourselves, checked our vehicles. Amazingly, my old Buick took only a few superficial bruises. Not even worth hammering out. The other car fared a little worse, but not by much.

The officer at the other accident came over to make sure we were all right, but she was still occupied and couldn't offer much assistance. Thankfully, we didn't need any, but at least we did have an official eyewitness. The other driver and I basically agreed that we were fortunate and opted to leave it at that. Both old cars, both boasting a few more scars that add character.

Just another ding on the Great White Beast. Lord bless that sturdy old Buick. But from now on, when the weather turns bad, I'm going with my gut, and that shall be that. Right now, there are many, many who are going through worse storm-related trials. Be safe as safe can be out there, folks.

Now, while I've still got power, I think I'll go watch this:

It Was a Dark, Snowy, Sleety, Rainy, Windy, Thundery Night

After several days of temperatures that insinuated summer might be in the offing, we get our first winter storm, and it was kind of a doozy. Don't think I've ever experienced snow, sleet, rain, wind, lightning, and thunder simultaneously until tonight. And for some time, I kept hearing the distinctive, repetitive sound of footsteps on my roof. It unnerved the cats, and they all skulked off to hide. I took my camera and went outside for a bit, but couldn't spot any supernatural entities lurking about. Lots of snowflakes with delusions of grandeur, though — some as big as the Cockroach What Ate Cincinnati.

Now, back into the warmth, which I am very thankful to have. I hope whatever's walking around on my roof doesn't poke holes in it.

And a late addendum. I had no sooner typed the above when the power went out. Fortunately, the house didn't get too cold, and the electricity was restored sometime around 1:00 AM. Things are returning to normal.... as they said in Invasion of the Body Snatchers....