winter

Is It? Really? Don’t Lie To Me…

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It’s April in Upstate New York and it’s SPRINGTIME!

Wait. Be right back.

It is! Had to go look, again, because you can’t be sure about the weather around here but it does look like it’s time to put the winter clothes away. If you live in a temperate climate whose winter doesn’t challenge you, you might not appreciate Spring the way we do, here….especially if you are an “older person”*. Minus Zero temperatures do wonders for the joints, and howling winds certainly help to clear germs and viruses from exposed skin. And no bugs! Snow is a big help, too: it takes the worry out of planning your day when everything is closed or closing. Enjoy your time alone. Learn more about yourself. Look inward, grasshopper.

The worst part of winter in upstate New York, though, is the complaining. Fugddaboutit NY City people having a “bad mouth”, come to Upstate when the snow is…

Hmph. I’m complaining, aren’t I. Not directly but that other way people whine. Reboot.

Spring is here! My windows are open, and my apartment is full of fresh air and construction.** It is also full of something hard to explain. This something happens every year when Spring returns, and since it is only my third spring after being in The South for over 20 years, my mind and body feel “something” my brain and fingers aren’t helping me explain.

It may be my brain and fingers want me to do something other than this. They may want me to go outside, take my clothes off, and walk***around in the sun under the fantastically clear blue sky. Or sit on my balcony and silently respond to the shouts, orders, directions, and curses of suddenly light-hearted construction workers. Imagine how happy THEY are about Spring.

I’m out of here. No more talking about Spring in Upstate New York except to suggest you southerners, Californians, and Upstate NY Snowbirds**** come to visit or return. It’s time. Paradise is reborn.

Footnote: so far this day, every person entering my bubble of existence is as happy about Spring as I am. And thankfully, only one has reminded me of how soon winter will be back. Buttwipe.

Out, out damn gray slush-lover!

“Lay on, McDuff!”*****

“The April’s in her eyes; it is love’s spring, and these gentle showers bring it with them.”

*Good, neutral term. Old Man or Old Woman might turn the reader off, as in “Who Cares.”

**A personal bonus from the expansion of my apartment complex. Besides the normal sounds of hammering and sawing and grinding and high-powered tools, there are also some interesting words.

***Yes, as a young man I often fell victim to the desire to feel sun all over,…but at a higher speed.

****People lucky/unlucky enough to have the best of Upstate without the worst.

*****Actual quote, often mis-paraphrased.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Night

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Yeah, it is. Was. And will be for at least two more days. Happy Feckin’ New Year.

There is no way to describe the feeling of an upstate New York Lake Effect Snow Bomb(NYLESB*). No way. But I have to try, it is the only thing to do to save sanity. I’ve videod NYLESB every mid-night because it is beautiful as the flakes dance and drift and fly over the parking lots and the cars, often sideways in the biting, cold wind. Then, I noticed every night has been the same for…a month, a year, forever? And how gray is gray, anyway? Each day is a pulsating, electric rainbow of gray, light gray, dark gray, medium gray. It’s making my hair gray, driving me to not care a f#$% about punctuation and spelling. Oh, nooooo.

A weather person on a local station did an outdoor report on the amount of snow falling during this latest assault. She was covered head to toe with fabric but her exposed cheeks were bright red. The male news anchor inside the studio said this when the outdoor reporter finished her report: “Thanks for that report, Hannah and remember, stuff like this builds character.” Mic drop.

I lived in upstate NY for my first 30 years and it was never like this. Or was it? Maybe this is just another way age effects and affects us? As a 30-year old, did character building influence my opinion and recording of past snow events? Was there ever a time when new snow meant get outside and play, or at least shovel the driveway? We used to burrow snow forts into the two-tiered snowbanks caused by the snowplows with the wings. Later in life there was a news story about kids getting killed when another passing snowplow buried them. So it goes, as a famous person said more than once.

Yeah, that makes sense: we can build character with any event if we are ignorant enough. Or naïve enough? Inexperienced? Stupid?

In looking at this through the distortion of a half-full glass, it is a great way to get an idea of how Arctic and Antarctic researchers must feel when they purposefully place themselves in either of this Earth’s frigid, frozen poles. Hey, more good news. Thanks to climate change they may not be frozen much longer…all that ice and snow is migrating to Upstate New York.

What’s the big deal? At least we’re alive, right?

As the whining continues, it should be pointed out I am nice and warm inside a swanky apartment building with heat, light, and a fitness center on the first floor. My front wall of windows allows me to turn The Chair to sit and watch the dropping of NYLESB’s snowflakus gigantis, levitating from The Chair only when I really, really want to, or when nature calls for a warmer activity in the throne room. There are some who may not be as lucky. It is a time to ponder the homeless, or the poor who cannot afford heat, or the cat who runs under cars in the parking lot. What happens to them? Can anything be done?

And there it is, dammit, character. Do I get credit for it or does Mother Nature? God? Is my character-building the result of free will, and would it have happened without the warm apartment?

No one gets credit until something gets done. Thinking of good character is not being a good character. When that snow stops, watch out, world, you’re gonna get fixed. (Yes, I was going to type something else.)

But right now, back to bed.

This piece is riddled with red and blue lines, warning the grammar and spelling police are awakening and preparing my arrest. Am I worried? If you don’t hear from me look under the big snowbank to the left of the building.

*This sounds a little “rainbowish”? Anyone offended?

Not So Obvious Common-Sense Things for Seniors

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Hope seniors know these already, and if you’re a young’un, they can help you, too. You will get old, if you’re lucky.

Use a “fitness watch” to help with diet and exercise and don’t stop it when you’re done exercising. Or stop it and then start it again as you shower and dress. You’ll be surprised at how hard you work getting clean and dressed to go home after your fitness session.

If you don’t have a fitness watch, get one. It is an interesting device that can do almost anything, including recording your sleep/nap time. Get one with the “fall-safe” option. It will call 911 if you fall and don’t answer the watch’s question in 30 seconds. At least my google watch will. Of note: Ace Frehly, the KISS guitarist, recently died from the results of a fall at home. Not sure if a watch would have helped, but it can’t hurt. Think “Help me, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” ads from years ago.

Amazon has entire pages of shoes for all seasons made specifically for seniors to “slip-on” without exerting the type of effort a fitness watch would record *. Of course, you can still wear lace-up shoes and add extra calories to your fitness routine. No, there are no “slip-on” socks, yet so we still bend over to remove and put on most socks. If you get loose fitting ones, you can get the socks off without bending over and save a few ergs of energy. Get a “reacher”** to pick them up if bending over is anathematic. (Today’s new word. Ask Ai.)

Give your most trusted child *** a key to your home or apartment building, Then, when you fall asleep for your afternoon nap the child can drop stuff off without waking you. It gives them the chance to check up on you, too, and see how clean and aromatic your home or apartment might or might not be. It would help, too, if you both had some sort of communication schedule, especially if the senior lives alone. My daughter and I try to talk every day or at least three times a week, and we never miss more than two days in a row. In a worst-case scenario, if I went to heaven in my apartment, it would only be two days before they found my rotting carcass. My building maintenance man says he wouldn’t know about “any” corpse until it started to smell. Don’t laugh, reader, it is a fact, not hyperbole for humor. Ai says “putrefaction” would take 4 to 10 days depending….

Depending on where you live, buy more reading glasses, cheap gloves, and cheap hats than you need. Due to our natural cognitive decline, it’s better to have these things in abundance than to need them and not have them, especially on cold, winter days. Or when shopping and trying to read labels. Look in Dollar Stores for economic quantity, and if you still trust yourself, buy decent ones from Macy’s. Oh, and Amazon, again: I bought 12 pairs of brown Jersey gloves for $9. Some are in the house, some are in the car, some in my man-bag/gym bag, and some are resting in the dresser drawer for when the others run away from home. Note: if you’re buying me a Christmas Present, do not buy fancy gloves or hats. If you do, and they are really pricey, they’ll stay in the drawer rather than mysteriously disappear. Hopefully, they can be re-gifted to “someone with all their faculties intact.” (See
“For Esme-with Love and Squalor” by J.D. Salinger. 1950)

In a later post we’ll talk about “layering” to keep warm, get cool, and then warm up, again, all with one coordinated outfit.

And if you live in a warm climate…you needn’t care about most of this post, you lucky bastage.****

 *Except for summer. Or a move to the south. No socks! Socks suck

**You know what it is: a squeezy thingy at the end of an extension thing-a-ma-jiggy.

***If you have one.

****Michael Keaton in “Johnny Dangerously”, 1984.

Trump, no more

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Yep, it’s true. These are the last, few sentences I’ll write about Felon47. It isn’t because he’s stopped lying, whining, and doing bad things, but everyone is starting to take notice. Finally. You’ll hear all about it in the coming months. My words aren’t needed, anymore.

So…what do we talk about, now?

My little town in upstate New York was thrust into the “Lake Effect Snowbelt” these past few weeks. It is a phenomenon unique to the states east of The Great Lakes (google them). Cold winds coming from the west, northwest flow over the still warm lakes and suck up huge amounts of water, which gets deposited over land as the wind sweeps off last lake. It doesn’t get deposited as water, but as snow. It snows so much and for so long it’s hard to believe each snowflake is different. AI says each flake is different because “each snowflake follows a different path through the air, experiencing different conditions.” I call bull$%^& and need to see some proof: they all look the same when you’re shoveling.

Historically, the Lake Effect drops snow bombs farther north of my city, dumping as much as 30 feet of snow, annually, on small towns and farms whose denizens are veterans of the flaky onslaught. They relish it. Local parking lots are not filled with cars but snowmobiles. The Tug Hill Plateau region holds the (unofficial) New York State record of 77 inches of snowfall in 24 hours. Each flake unique, beautiful, and fragile. Right. How many unique flakes in 77 inches spread over acres and acres? Bull%$#@. Imagine someone looking at each flake…

How many flakes? I finally understand the concept of “infinity”.

The last two weeks a wind shift has pushed the lake effect south…to me… and I’ve been in The Chair watching it from the warmth and comfort of my second-floor apartment. (And sharing it with my friends in the south, garnering immense pity.) Most days there has been some form of legal restriction on travel: states of emergency, weather advisories, warnings, and often things are just closed so there is no reason to venture out. But some do, with hilarious consequence. Maybe they’re checking the uniqueness of flakes? Or just like to move snow around.

As noted in an earlier “complaint” about snowfall in upstate New York, humans are the best entertainment in bad conditions. We are fun to watch.

The complex I live in has a sense of humor, too. Imagine trying to clear a parking lot full of snow when the parking lot is full of cars. And the snow never stops. Management tried to get us to move our cars in concert during the first snow blast last month. About 50 per cent of us did, which you can imagine, made it worse. So when the next management notice came about moving cars to clear an area no one moved. Now that’s progress.

It’s the end of February so the big lake effect snows may be over, but after a strange, 10 months of unusual weather highlighted by a rare summer tornado and rare lake effect snow, it can only mean I owe the lifetime residents an apology for moving here last April.

For more than that reason, I am truly sorry.

But: Spring is coming! And MAGAns are turning against…oops…almost said that name.