 Nostalgia, DVDs, old movies, television, OTR, fandom, good news and bad, picks, pans, cute budgie stories, cute terrier stories, and anything else I can think of. Contact me at theyoungfamily (at) earthlink (dot) net . . . . . . . . . .
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» Saturday, February 11, 2012
Fr   We've had a warm winter; maybe not as warm as the winter of 2001-2002, when it climbed into the 70s every three or four days, but still warm enough that trees started blossoming a week ago and there are daffodils all over the place.But this weekend we're having a blast of cold air, and it's not the high 30s and 40s of past weeks! We went to the Winter Market this morning and the poor vendors could barely keep their pop-up tents from blowing over in the wind, which had an icy edge that crept up any gap in your clothing. They set up on Mill Street in the winter, and the wind was coming in just the right direction to make a big funnel of cold air up the street. We bought a pot pie for Monday and some chicken salad and cheese, then walked over in the lee of the buildings to the Corner Shop, which is a British store. They have various British candies and foods, and some souvenir type things like royal wedding memorabilia. We were chatting to the British owner about the cold. We came back home by Bernhards bakery and got a couple of desserts for next week, and also some sausage from Weinerz next door. By the time we got home we had a good glow, especially after hauling upstairs the birdseed I bought last week and refilling the can—the breeze was pretty brisk on the deck, too. I had it cleaned up and turned upside down because I found moldy seed at the bottom. Forty-two pounds of birdseed still doesn't quite fill it. I probably could have gotten another bag of safflower. Later I was rewarded by seeing fluffed sparrows and titmice chowing down on fresh seed. James was soon off to his club meeting and I stayed in to condense some computer files which were every which where on my hard drive. I was having some trouble using more than three USB ports; if I plugged the Nook into the computer, my thumb drive wouldn't work. Is there some rule limiting the number of USB ports you can use at one time? But now I have all my downloaded e-books in one place. By the time James got home I was ready for supper. We had a coupon for Ruby Tuesday, so ate there, then did the grocery shopping. Thankfully, we needed little, and James picked up a prescription. By the time we emerged, the wind was cutting an icy swath down that big parking lot outside the new Kroger. I should have worn my coat: it was down to 29°F by then (about 7:30), 17 with the wind chill! Back at home, I hitched my backup disk to the computer and did a backup of my hard drive (I hadn't done one since July, which really amazed me), and James and I sat down and watched the first disk of the last series of Pie in the Sky. DI Henry Crabbe is being punished in this last season by being assigned to a police squad for hire by the public, and paired with two fledgeling police officers. Thankfully, neither is comic relief as they would probably be in an American series. Crabbe's supervisor Freddy is just as much of a jerk as ever. I'll be very sorry when this series is over. I made another fruitless effort to connect the Blu-Ray player with the internet connection again. I was really enjoying watching the Christopher Eccleston Doctor Whos over, and things like The National Parks, which we didn't see in widescreen because Dish wasn't showing PBS in HD back then, but the moment James swapped out computers the internet connection quit working with it. I thought I had it tonight—I looked at amazement at the IP settings, which were completely wrong for the router, and set them up manually...and it said it connected! But when I tried to get on Netflix, it still told me that the wireless connection was fine but the internet connect failed. Bother. I watched an episode of Lassie instead. I'm seeing some familiar names in the credits of the Jeff episodes: one had Wilton Schiller as the writer; he went on to produce my favorite "bad" series, Dr. Simon Locke (and its boring sequel, Police Surgeon). A few nights later the writer was David Dotort, who created Bonanza. Labels: computers, food, television, weather, winter  » Sunday, January 08, 2012
All Downhill From Now On
Christmas celebrations come to an end, but then...is Christmas ever quite over? :-)We watched—and quite overdue, too; Netflix must think we lost the disk!—the next three episodes in Season 2 of Murdoch Mysteries while we were eating supper (nice plain fare: pork roast, ramen noodles and cucumbers). "Convalescence" was quite good: Murdoch incapacitated but encountering a mystery while officer Crabtree investigates his own crime with the help of a parrot. Then I found the animated Star Trek on streaming Netflix. Labels: Christmas, television, winter » Monday, January 10, 2011
Free
 It started raining last night, early in the evening, and then rapidly turned to a steady snow. Most of the time when we have snow, the flakes are either uniformly large or small, but last evening the flakes were mixed, tiny, medium, even the large blowsy ones all together, swirling with what must have been bits of sleet or ice, as it looked as if large bits of glitter were flashing and sparking. Under the porch lights everything sparkled. And it accumulated quite quickly; by the time we went to bed at midnight, there were at least four inches on the deck (measured onsite via ruler!).Just before I took my shower I called the CDC Emergency line, and learned today was a... ...snow day! James had also taken one look at the forecast and called in to work. I would like to say we spent a productive day, but we took that at its word: it was lazy and wonderful. We slept until ten, then James took Willow outside and she refused to go near the back gate. Instead she made random little paw-prints in the snow as if she were Billy in the "Family Circus," then just did her business out front. James disposed of the evidence. :-) Last night when he realized we would be home today, he started some oatmeal in the slow cooker. The recipe called for steel-cut oats and cream, but we didn't have the latter and he couldn't find the former. He used rolled oats instead, and butter with our skim milk, and it was still soupy this morning, so he had to make another batch of oatmeal to make it thick enough. It was pretty good, nevertheless, and I had a nice bowlful, maybe even a little more, but he had put dried cherries in it. I really don't like fruit in my oatmeal; I prefer the real thing. Plain maple would have done me just fine. Animal Planet seemed to be having an "Animal Cops" marathon, so we had that on most of the morning and early afternoon. I read Albert's Tale of Applebeck Orchard and was endlessly entertained by the birds at the feeders. Yesterday before it snowed I mounted the window feeder I bought before Christmas. I didn't expect any of the birds to find it with the feeders full, but the two titmice spotted the black oil sunflower seeds in it and were flitting back and forth all day plucking them one by one from the tray and then flying away. The feeder is almost all clear lucite and at one point the titmouse tried to get the seed from the bottom, frustrated by being able to see them, but not get them! At one point there was a chipping sparrow on each perch of the squirrel-proof feeders, plus two more hopping on the ice-coated mounded-snowy railings, so we had fourteen out there, plus a pine warbler. We saw the yellow-rumped warbler at the suet, and also had the usual contingent of nuthatches, chickadees, the red-bellied woodpeckers, the male cardinal, and even a couple of bluebirds. Ground-foraging on the snowy grass we saw more of the same, at least one blue jay and what looked like a female Eastern towhee (brown on the head and wings, the very center of the chest and torso white, surrounded by red). There was nothing on television except for snow coverage. There was one perpetual accident with 18-wheelers after the other, jackknifed in the middle of the road, against concrete abutments, at the edge of the road. Very few cars, but of the ones that were out, many of them were sliding backwards down hills, even big heavy SUVs, or skewing off sideways over curbs and into bushes. About three o'clock I pulled on a hat, shoes, and another sweater and went out to refill the bird feeders. By the time I did the second one my hands were in massive pain; I had to chafe them continually to finish. I thought about replacing the suet, but I couldn't have managed it. A little after four I went into the closet and rummaged until I found my boots. I tried putting these on last year and couldn't pull them on because of my damn instep. This time I tugged and grunted and actually did get them on. So I bundled up in my heavy hat, James' scarf, and my nice Rhode Island-weight winter coat and took Willow outside, grabbing the nice ski-pole-like walking stick Juanita bought for James back when he had his knee surgery. This worked pretty well. As I discovered when I went out on the deck, the 4-plus inches of snow is now covered by an icy crust. Using the pole I didn't have any trouble getting to the gate, and James had covered the lock with heavy-duty foil, which worked nicely. But poor Willow, tramping behind me, had hard slogging. She was just heavy enough to break the crust on the snow, and she insisted on going to the very back on the lot to do her business. The expression on her face as she broke through and stepped, broke through and stepped, broke through again, was comical and sad at the same time. I let her back in and then tried a short walk of my own, from our driveway to the edge of the cul-de-sac, a distance of two homes. The stick helped, but I still almost fell. The top of the driveway was literally a skating rink, and it was slick all the way up and back. Some of the young adults further down were sliding on the gradual slope of the street, and I saw two kids up on the corner taking pictures of the cars sliding their way down the main road. James made some chicken for supper and we had that while watching the Nature special about Born Free and the impact it had on the world and people's concept of lions (and other predators). I remember seeing Born Free at the Majestic Theatre when it came out in 1966. I had the Bantam copy of the book which I carried to my fifth-grade classes for weeks and read so much that I eventually had to get a new copy of the book as an adult; the pages were falling out. I had all of Joy Adamson's sequels, and watched the television specials, including the now-famous Christian the Lion, and there is of course an "Elsa" on the library Christmas tree. SNOW DAY! » Friday, February 12, 2010
Snow Day
This was 1:40, just as the snow had started—those poor woebegone goldfinches. About an hour later when snow was accumulated on the deck, I heard a bird scolding outside. Sure enough, it was one of the goldfinches, holed up under a deck chair.
 Out in the snow, of course! Delayed shutters are great things. All the rest of these photos were taken about 3:15 p.m.  Willow is not a snow bunny; a true "Dixie chick," she spent half the entire five minutes I tried to take photos of her in the snow trying to get back inside. :-)  Facing south:  Facing north:  Back yard: 
» Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Skeleton Freeze
Once they made the change to digital, the local channels ended up with these little "side-channels" or "sub-channels" that had other programming on them. WXIA, Atlanta's NBC station, has two of these sub-channels. One is a silent local radar, with temp and forecasts, the other is Universal Sports. Most of the time that I've surfed by, they seem to be broadcasting bicycle racing (occasionally swimming), but now that winter is here and the Olympics are upcoming, we are seeing snow sports: snowboarding, skiing, etc. Today during lunch they had women's skeleton, which means you like prone on a specially-made board the size of a serving tray and hurtle downhill head first along a twisting chute made of ice at speeds that go up to 75 mph by the time you reach the bottom of the chute.
May I be the first to say "barf ride"? :-) But it's fun to watch. I love watching winter sports. Can't wait for the Winter Olympics. Last time we had a Winter Olympics we were moving, so I hope we can enjoy watching more this time. Labels: sports, television, winter » Thursday, January 14, 2010
[sticks hand up from amongst tinsel]
I'm here...when I'm not busy with work I am taking down Christmas decorations...what took three weeks to go up does not take one day to come down, and I'm behind because the party was so late...at this rate I'll be taking the tree down on MLK Day. But I have the small decorations clear (bathroom, guest room, what little we put up in the bedroom, the Rudolph tree in the hall—which I just bubble wrap at the end of the season and end up fixing when I put it back up), the candles out of all the windows upstairs (the library tree is in the way downstairs and it's been so cold down there I've been reluctant to go work), the porch decorated for winter even though the lights are still up, and at lunch today I cleared all out of the dining room and kitchen (just have the Santas to wrap up—I had to glue one that broke when it fell, so I want to make sure the glue is dry).
Labels: Christmas, decorating, winter » Thursday, January 07, 2010
EXactly!
» Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Continued Cold and Windy
I was thinking "A Visit from St. Nicholas" this morning—not because of the Christmas tree in the window at the corner of Old Concord and Powder Springs Street, but due to the line
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,since the gusting wind was scattering leaves across the streets before me in vast herds, a blustery Lassie chivvying botanical sheep. According to weather.com, the temp stood at 32°F (22 with the wind chill factor), although the car's external thermometer stated 34. I still wore my fleece jacket, albeit with a scarf and hat, not the coat. The heater in the car works fine, thanks, as does the one at work. (It's still 78 in here, despite the chill outside.*) Tomorrow morning's going to be the real freeze, predicted down to 29°F. Abandon ship! Abandon ship! Freeze warning! Get a grip, weather guys and gals, okay? * At least it's not as bad as senior year in high school. Seniors had homerooms on the fourth floor at Cranston East, and back then they were chronically overheated in winter while the rest of the school was either a normal temperature or freezing cold on the ground floor—many's the day the homeroom teacher had the windows open because the thermometer in the room stood at 92°F. Cross this with coming in out of a mile and a half walk in 25 degree weather in which you were clad in heavy coat, scarf, and hat with a heavy sweater and a vest over that, and you can see it's sauna time! :-) » Thursday, January 18, 2007
Baby, It's C 0 ld Outside
For Canada it's downright tropical for winter. :-)
The temperature is hovering at 34°F and there's 100 percent humidity. I took Willow out for a walk at 1 p.m. and it was that damp cold that worms its way into your flesh and bone and makes you cold from the inside out. Yestereday she trotted out happily, enjoying the walk, and today she was in a hurry to get back inside, but we did finish the walk. There was ice along the deck rail when I went out to refill the bird feeder early this morning and the birds attacked the fresh seed en masse. Labels: winter » Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Like a Rock
The temperature is dropping fast. We set a record 73°F yesterday; this morning at six it was 48° and now it is 40.
We are appreciating the perks of a modern house. Yesterday I had the fans going in the bedrooms and all the doors open for complete air circulation. There was a breeze coming in the living room windows and I didn't want Pidgie to get a draft, so I didn't put a fan there. James shut the spare bedroom fans off a little after nine and closed up our room with the fans still on. I didn't close the rest of the windows until bedtime (eleven). Nevertheless, the temp at the thermostat was still 71°F and in the living room 76. I turned the heat back on because the temp was supposed to crash during the night. Nevertheless, when I got up, the heat, set at 67°F, still had not kicked on because it was still 69. I call that good insulation! Labels: winter » Sunday, January 14, 2007
Decorated for Winter...
» Friday, December 22, 2006
"Jack Frost Nipping at Your Nose..."
...(not hardly, unless you're in Denver) and other winter solstice links in Holiday Harbour.
Labels: Holiday Harbour, online, winter » Friday, December 08, 2006
Baby, It's Cold Outside
18°F to be specific, with the wind chill setting it as 7°F. In New England that's a typical winter day, but it's pretty cold for around here. (Actually, according to the Weather Channel, it's warmer in Rhode Island than it is here.)
The funniest thing is that some of these idiots still have their automatic lawn sprinklers set to go on in the middle of the night, so I drove past several places this morning where there were sheets of ice over the grass and the pavement from the sprinklers running last night. » Thursday, December 07, 2006
Walking Weather
It's so pretty out: only about 47°F with a stiff breeze. Excellent walking weather; I took a short walk at lunch. Supposed to be the same tomorrow. :-) Of course this couldn't happen on a Friday I'm off. It will probably be icky 60s again by next Friday.
By the time I get home it will be dark (traffic's already backed up 18-20 minutes to go the five miles between I-75 and the traffic sign on I-285 westbound and I don't leave for 30 minutes yet). Darn, no chance to enjoy it. |
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