The Poor Little Thing

   Our little girl had a fairly traumatic day yesterday. I got home from work at my usual time, and started putting some of my gear away in our walk-in bedroom closet. When I opened the door, she bolted out, and started blinking for several seconds. She'd been trapped in the utter dark for at least 6 hours.
   Apparently, she snuck into the closet when my wife opened the door to get something out before she went to work. She's a quiet kitty to begin with, not that it mattered with us gone, and never meowed once or scratched at the door to get out.
   I'm guessing she found a nice pile of clothes or a stack of sheets, curled up and just went to sleep until freedom came. At least she didn't leave anything nasty for me to clean up.
   And I bet it'll be a while before she tries to sneak in there again! But with cats, you never know.

TTFN

It's January 25th

   And that means it's Robbie Burns Day in celebration of the Scottish poet and lyricist born on this day in 1759. And that also means it's time for my bi-annual "donning of the kilt" for work:

   No, I'm not Scots (unless the consumption of Scotch qualifies me), but mostly Scandinavian. In fact, I'm 2nd generation Canadian on both my father and mothers side. But I digress.
   I really don't know how this all started 4 years ago, but it's a tradition I'm happy to continue, even if the end result is a couple of laughs from my co-workers.
   The kilt I've had for years, the hat was my dad's (bought when he went back to England in 1984), the pipes were an afterthought. They do work, albeit only the chanter. The drone pipes are simply to keep the look as real as possible. And no. I can't play them. I did manage to get some squeaking noises out of them, but as for anything even remotely resembling an actual tune, forget it.
   In fact, I've found that if you don't squeeze it, it dinna make that horrible noise.
   And of course, the questions was asked if I'd ever tried haggis (google it yourself). My answer: No. It's too offal.

TTFN

It's Melting!

   Last week, I blogged about the big ice storm we had in our region. Everything was coated in a fairly thick sheet of ice, including my car. Temperatures also plunged into the -30 C range, with windchills in the -40's, meaning nothing could get rid of it. City streets continue to be treacherous, despite the best efforts of road crews. When it gets that cold, they can't use salt, because the resulting mess will be worse than what they started out with. The ice and clod have also wreaked havoc on our door locks, rendering them almost impossible to open with our keys.
   That's going to change today. We're looking for daytime highs in the plus single digits the next few days. Which is rather a mixed blessing. There's no doubt it will help get rid of some of the ice we had from the freezing rain. I might even finally get it all off my car. But the downside is twofold. One, while it will help melt some of the ice and snow, the problem is it'll freeze again overnight, potentially causing more problems. Secondly, if it does get as warm as they say, there's a real risk of pavement frost coming up on highways. Which again is a problem.
   It isn't that I'm not happy to get out of the deep-freeze for the next few days, but I would've rather had highs in the -10 C range.
   Bit, as several people have posted on Facebook, at least we haven't seen a mosquito in months!

TTFN

Ice, Ice Baby

   Freezing rain in our area last night meant for an interesting morning, after everything was coated in ice. I went to bed fully knowing I was going to have to scrape my windshield before starting my trek to the office. I got up a good half hour earlier than normal, and (after spreading sidewalk deicer liberally on the walks) shut the door to our house at 03:10. I got into the office, usually a 2 minute drive, at 03:50. 40 minutes from when I set off.
   And all that time, I was either trying to chip away at what was quite a thick coating of ice, using the winter windshield washer fluid to help, and just running the car to get it to melt. I finally managed to clear enough of the windshield and 2 side windows to see, and made it in. On some very slippery roads!
   Conditions were so bad that one of my co-workers, who walks to the office, slipped, fell on his back and hit his head hard enough to crack the ice on the sidewalk. He made it through the morning, but was going to get checked for concussion at the hospital.
   Hopefully, things improve before I leave today, as I have an appointment at 13:00.

TTFN

Back At It

   And I had a good stretch of time off. I also didn't accomplish a whole lot, which I guess is the main reason for having time off in the first place. The best part was I got to sleep in! Until 6:00 A.M! For me, that's a big deal, since my internal alarm clock usually wakes me by 3:30.
   About the only thing I did get done was my traditional holiday viewing of the Lords of the Rings trilogy. In fact, I was so lazy, I didn't do much as far as cooking went. Just some basic meals was all. Which is why I was rather surprised when I hopped on the scales for the first time in 2018 to find I'd lost another 3 pounds. I was fully expecting to have gained weight. And it was nice to have the brutally cold weather end, albeit only for a short time.
   So, that's it for schedules time off for the next 5 months. I won't get any more vacation time until late May, when my wife and I plan on taking a trip to Calgary to visit family and friends.
   The only fly in the ointment was a cold I had over Christmas. While I'm mostly over it now, I still have some congestion and a nasty, nagging cough. Hopefully, that'll be gone soon too.

TTFN!