When I posted the video clip of Joe (I can’t stand that man) Biden, I realized it would be on the front page for awhile. I thought I could handle it, and I’m not going to go jump off a cliff or anything, but I saw it this morning and felt like puking.

God, that man irritates me.

Every now and then, I will receive a comment on some post that is a spam-like thing. One showed up this morning; it was about porn on your Mac. This could be a coincidence, but, my gosh, what are the chances?

I could delete this clip, but I think of it more as a public service visual aid; it just needs a skull & crossbones over it. And the the question: Parents, do you know who your children are seeing on TV?

No, we can’t run away from everything that is ugly and, in my opinion, just plain evil . . . but
I am moving him down the page, one post at a time.

A friend met on the Internet is Pottermom and we tease each other back and forth. She is very familiar with my opinion of Joe Biden: I can’t stand that man. Yes, that opinion. I think she has upped the stakes on the teasing, though, because on her blog, she posted a link to this video clip, especially for me.

Warning: What you are about to see is graphic in nature and may be upsetting to some viewers.

If the embedding doesn’t work, here is the LINK.

There is a two-hour delay, but school will be in session for East Noble today. For me, this means I will get some idea about which day of the week it is – that Saturday and Sunday have not Twilight Zoned into forever. The sky is blue, for now, but in two days we are expected to have an icy mix of stuff.  That will be the start of February. I have repeatedly called February the waiting room of the year; after plodding through January, I might appreciate a bit of waiting room.

I woke up early this morning and now I realize I have no yet taken my morning medicine . . . and, whoa, I have not had any peanut butter. Maybe I am in The Twilight Zone.

I was almost certain trash pick-up would be delayed by at least a day during this period of snow, more than usual cold, and more snow. I wasn’t 100% absolutely sure, though.  Our trash is picked up Thursday morning – sometimes very early, so we need to have it out there Wednesday night.

Yesterday, I started thinking, “Tomorrow is Wednesday night . . .” By this morning, it had become a chant in my head. Closings and Delays are plastered everywhere; looking for a off-beat one is iffy. However, today, on the trash website, although the company does not call it The Trash Website, a schedule was posted. YES! I am correct in thinking there will be a delay of a day.

Now, of course, I must keep reminding myself the trash had better be out Thursday night. Gee, it’s not our routine; I might forget. This sounds really familiar and I believe I have posted about this worry before. It’s one of those things in life that isn’t a one time deal; you do it one week and then, BAM, they expect you to do it again. I have not considered it this way before, but I suppose taking out the trash is performance art and the show must go on.

Sitting in a pool of light, with a comforter around you and your nose running, is not necessarily a bad thing. You are cozy; you are warm; the pressure in your sinuses is easing. It is especially not bad if you have washed your face in a gentle cleansing cream, pressed hot washcloths against your face and dried it to a soft fragrance.

The trick is to keep your head tilted downward so the  – clear my throat – snot can drain. Oh, what a shattered image that is. Drat, and I was feeling so Estee Lauder facially clean and soothed and scented. Now I am feeling green – and not the Kermit shade.

Where did the word “snot” come from. Did someone look at the wretched stuff and exclaim, “S’not true. Can’t be anything that yukky coming out of my sweet Juliet!?” Perhaps. But etymology aside, true snot is part of our lives. And often at night.

Well, I could have talked about the weather again. Now, would not that have been boring?

I had a good day because I got stuck in my driveway, I got stuck right where it meets Riley Street, which the plows had cleared to a nice, smooth surface. But right there, right before the smoothness, was a wide-based snow dyke where the plows had pushed the snow. And, despite my grandkids digging and pushing and being downright good and cheerful workers, we were in that spot . . . for a long time, not making any progress. It was four degrees, with wind.

A young man came along on an ATV; he was dressed for winter and he offered to give me a tug out to the road – a tug of a few inches, maybe a foot, that was as good as a mile.

We talked a bit as I pressed some money on him that he didn’t want to take, and then I asked his name.

“Don Moore,” he replied. Yes, he was Don Moore Sr.’s son. You may remember Don Moore Sr., the dynamo of a man who lost his life too early. He had earned every wonderful word spoken about him  and was  posthumously named a Sagamore of the Wabash Award winner.

There, in front of me and smiling, was his son. Actually, when he was passing my house, he was on his way to help an older lady with her driveway. Thought he’d check on her, he told me.

I told him his dad would be proud and we spoke of his loss. He said it was the hardest thing to get through he’d ever experienced. Said he’d been out to talk to his dad at the cemetery just the day before. Said he served for a year in Iraq and would do ten more if it would “bring Dad back.”

His voice was strong and friendly and masculine, but I saw a glimpse of his face becoming momentarily drawn and heard his voice start to get husky. He caught himself and smiled and headed toward his ATV to get on with life – as his dad would have wanted.

Don Sr., you would be magnificently proud.  I know you were all along, but the way he’s handled this and is pushing ahead with your positive attitude is  – to use an expression that captures true admiration in America’s Heartland – really something. It’s the type of thing that old men – and old men have seen a lot –  witness and don’t spend a lot of words on.  It’s the type of thing to which they give their greatest accolade – a solemn nod and the hint of a soft smile. That fellow can cut it, they think; that fellow’s a solid man.

I used to write about a lot of people for publication in a large city and when it came time to put my words down, there was a worried tension that I wouldn’t get it right. A day or so ago, I was thinking that I actually missed writing those stories after all. They brought out the best in me and allowed me to be let others see the best in my subjects. It felt good, doing that.

And, now, again, I’m felling good.

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*Originally, I wrote Sycamore, instead of Sagamore. Well, you spend a lifetime with they lyrics of Back Home Again in Indiana and what do you expect? Thanks for pointing it out.

I can get myself up and going and shower and GET IT OVER WITH or I can sit here and type a long post and then maybe decide to read a little, all the time having the chore of the shower hanging over my head. It’s 6:11 am; what will I do?

6:54 am: Well, it’s done and I have clothes on and boots on and my hair is combed and I weighed myself and, to be brutally honest, I don’t feel too much more inspired. Clean, but that’s about it. I might be going a little heavy here on the negative, because it does feel nice to have clean skin and feet inside clean socks. But, all in all, today it was, for me, a chore. I’m human. Yes, I do have some human tendencies along with my undeniable atavistic ones.

Enough of that. Alison has an appointment today over at the hospital at around ten, so we are going to have to corral some younger inhabitants here to gear up and be ready to push me out of the curving driveway. Ha! All at once the quotidian chore of showering on a cold morning doesn’t seem so bad. Of course, getting them out to push and shovel might be the easy part; getting them to answer the cell phone and come out to push us back in when we get return could be a problem.

But, there is some good news: the clock of which I have written lately sits by a cold window pane and this morning, it was acting oddly – just sounding the occasional chime and one bong. So I warmed it up and I just got a nice seven bongs; it may be six minutes slow, but that’s an easy adjustment.

Say, I think I wrote a post about making this a year of improvement and published it. I believe I need to go back and read it, but since I didn’t follow my edict of making sensible post titles, I may never find it. I suspect, however, that such a situation is akin to the policy that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Well, at least I can look. Maybe I’ll just shower again.

Hello and okay, I did not go back to sleep; I do not even have covers on me.  If you would like a visual, and, gee, who wouldn’t? – just think of me, AmeliaJake, coming onto the porch, rolling up a couple of afghans on one end of the sofa and then sitting at the other end with my feet propped up on the ‘ghans. Add in Emu boots, crossed at the ankle.

As I was typing that sentence, I started thinking of Der Bingle and his occasional remarks about my long sentences. I thought about breaking it up, but, oh, the heck with it. If that attitude is a barometer for the day, I’d say I’m in a fairly normal mood. Is barometer the word I want? Maybe I should choose harbinger. Whatever. I suppose that “whatever” – could you hear the sigh? – might be another indicator. Why do I feel as if I am on my way to a Gordon Ramsay expression without the good food?

And it is not even daylight yet.

Oh, by the way, I have forgotten to mention that I am officially a serf. A document showed up regarding my ancestors who came to America on the Thistle of Glasgow. They were serfs released to go, but if they came back they would be re-serfed.

Der Bingle always said I was a peasant. Not in a mean way, just matter-of-fact. And, I guess I do have short, stocky legs and don’t have much length to my neck.

It’s just after five in the morning and I am awake and wondering if I want to lay my ugly head down upon my wretched bed – oops, sorry there, a Muppet reference just hopped into the flow of my thought. Actually,  I feel like being a little sneaky here and getting something to drink and checking the news and then just easing back under the blankets.

Yesterday we had a series of snow squalls – mini blizzard things – with the temperature going up to the 20’s and then DOWN; today the same up and down pattern is predicted only with more snow. I’ve been talking so much about the weather, I need to get a barbershop pole and a bench with old men on it. More appropriate would be a big black stove with mismatched chairs around it – but I think the bench image was in a song once. There might have been a lyric about old women then talking about old men . . .

I’d say it’s time to go get that drink before my morning imagination really starts joining in.

We do not yet have snow coming down, BUT there is snow blizzarding across the roads from the gusting winds.  The wind is picking up any snow that is not packed down and moving it; I noticed about an hour ago that my eastbound lane on Hwy 6 was narrowing. It is a little unnerving to see those white fingers coming out onto the road while the headlights of a semi are heading at you.

It is going to warm up to about 20 tomorrow, but by six tomorrow night, it will be 5 again. My hair is dry and full of static electricity . . . and I don’t care. It may look wild, but it is nice and soft and freshly shampooed. I don’t know why I mentioned that other than when you’re huddled down, it’s nice to be clean and huddled down. Kind of like you and the downy blanket are one.

Shane wants me to go eat something so he can beg some bites of cheesy burritos. We are having a stare down. I think he’s winning.