I found this picture on a news site on the Internet; I imagine quite a lot of people viewed it. It took me a moment, though, to realize that was a dress sticking out from under the coat. This digger was a woman. My mother was a very good-looking woman, and, frankly, I don’t see the same lines of beauty in this woman’s face. I do see determination and my mother had that; she dug out after the blizzard of “78. She dug out every year – one shovelful at a time.

When she died, the people across the street told me at her visitation that the previous winter she had dug out a place for the mailman and the snowplows kept closing it up – so she climbed up on top of a snow ridge and wouldn’t let the next plows mess it up. She would have been 82 that year, and I’m certain she was dressed as if she could have been on the slopes at Aspen.

She had spunk and class; I have a temper and wear about anything. I’m certain I was a disappointment to her, but one thing though, I can shovel. Maybe that can be my epitaph.

Motivation eludes me. I know there are books on the subject; I could write one myself, with an afterword that stated, “Ha! Good Luck! If you needed to read this book, non-motivation is probably in your genes.” Of course, that would not be written because the book would not be written because of, well, go back and look at my very first sentence.

Where does this leave me? I would suspect it is not a good place, and that is unfortunate because, dontcha know, non-motivation will probably leave me right in it – -sort of like the lady whose body grew around a certain object in her bathroom. I know; disgusting; below AmeliaJake’s usual reference points.

I am actually chortling aloud at how low I have fallen. Maybe I can find an elevator, because, hey, you know, actually climbing stairs. It’s almost tempting to look around at the stuff on this level, but I did learn a lesson some years back that discourages that. Way back – decades back, long time ago, another galaxy, and so forth – I reasoned that if I were ever homeless I could go to jail and have my little cell and meals and reading material, and the occasional movie. Then I watched a documentary on a prison; do you know I saw inmates throwing food and bodily products through the bars at guards and other inmates walking by. I was stunned. Stunned. And the foul language, not to mention the bad grammar.

I realized dimples were probably not going to be an asset. It’s almost enough to motivate me to Plan B.

I’m only here to see how long I haven’t been here. Since, the the 13th, well, how about that? And now that I am here, I am the equivalent of a wallflower at a dance. My dance card is empty and, that is okay, because I am out of sorts and would probably step on feet and find something to complain about.

I’m going again.

Now, what is worse – a sinus headache in warm weather or one in frigid weather? Well, I’d have to say you can be fairly miserable with sinus in heat and humidity, but there is a sharp, alien pain to cold weather sinus. You feel brittle; your nose hints that it might just shatter and fall off your face, sort of like an implosion, from the inside out. That is to say, you don’t have the idea you can reach down and grab your nose and duct tape it back on; no, you suspect it will be like shattered crystal that has been walked over. Your nose is Humpty Dumpty.

Then that icicle reaches up into the sinus over your eye and and you experience something akin to brain freeze without the ice cream or slushie. Of course, I’m letting my imagination run amok here, but it gets my mind off a small, basic complaint – for awhile.

Actually, I should be glad I am not standing out in the cold with my mouth open because when your teeth get too cold, it really is unpleasant. You fold your tongue over them and it doesn’t do anything; you just have to wait it out.

You can tell what a petty day I am having; I have bigger concerns, but it’s easier to worry about my nose disintegrating. Maybe I’ll just sit here and hold it on.

I did not watch The State of the Union address because I did not want to put extra pressure on my blood pressure medicine – especially when the camera pans out and you can see Joe Biden in the background. One other reason for not watching last night was just that – the coverage. Everyone then has to give their opinion of the speech, either as a single talking head or as part of a panel. Then there’s the man on the street . . .

This may mark me as not being a responsible citizen, but it kept me from perhaps wearing a TV on my foot.

I have no research to back up anything here; it is all opinion, and one opinion at that – mine. I have noticed that when I am asking questions about a product on in a transaction, there can come a time when BAM the worker has to sign off because of the company’s really strict time schedules. Someone new will take over and I have to go over my question again or just let it go.

I understand that in order to offer prices attractive to customers, there is a regimentation of the workforce. But, come on, penalizing a worker for not taking his/her break at precisely such and such time is ridiculous. Of course, the customer is not considered A customer; no, we are lumped together in this amorphous mass. What if a customer doesn’t get decent service because of the strict regulations? It will balance out, the corporation figures. They’ll “take it”. And if one just decided to shop there no more, well, that just it – it’s one . . . and in the end, where else is that one going to go?

I know when I do go in a store, there are certain cashiers I will wait in line for because they are not robots and perhaps inquire if it was still raining out when I came in; there are other workers I will seek out because they will listen to my question, make certain they understand it and don’t just shove the most convenient thing in my hand. A worker who will smile and exchange a few friendly spontaneous words is a breath of fresh air. Ironically, I find myself thinking, “Don’t ask it,” when I sense the automatic “Did you find everything you were looking for?” about to come out of an employee’s mouth.

What I would really not want is to have the job of being the direct superior of the employees who are “first responders” to the customers. Those people are caught between encouraging their team to be responsible and polite to the customers and the corporate push of faster, faster, faster. Unit processed per hour, low staffing, etc.

Remember when the question was “Where’s the beef?” Well, it’s right above.

I was on the computer today when a pop-up sent me on an investigation into a person I knew on a daily basis close to 30 years ago. In the wondrous world of data information in the ether, I had Google Circled some years back and forgot about it. But them this little circle of a picture appeared on the side of my computer and I knew who it was.

It being a Monday, and a cold one, and me being fond of puzzles, I decided to do some investigation on, of course, the Internet. Here I sit, just a little while later, totally unconnected by any wires to anything, and I have learned he has two replacement knees and family reunions.

And because I am nosy, I looked at some other people from that time . . . and then I went and looked in a mirror. Whoa, it is true. Time stops for no one.

As a northern Hoosier, I should be shrugging and indicating that, hey, there’s no need for a heavy coat. Heck, just run barefoot out to the car. But this fall, except for one quickly melting snow, has been warm, with temps often between 35 and 59?. And, thus it was when I opened my eyes this morning and checked my phone, I exclaimed, “It’s ONLY fire degrees!” in a totally different way; that would be the “Oh, God, we’re going to freeze!!!!!” line of expression. Not unlike Prissy in Gone With the Wind who became hysterical as she told Miss Scarlet she had never delivered no babies.

I think it is a very good idea to keep a sleeping bag in your car in winter – especially a well-made, guaranteed to like -50? or so. However, one way or another, a really good sleeping bag wound up on the garage floor and then wrapped around the front axle of a car. I have an idea about the one way or another but I am not going there, because after spending two hours on a garage floor, reaching around a wheel with knives and poultry scissors, I freed the bag – in pieces – and might have the urge to get revenge.

This, Gee, Grandma can get things done wears a little after awhile. I mean to teach someone to not panic, to just figure out what you have to do and do it is one thing when you are passing the torch down generations. It is another when you are being passed the buck.

I did have a little fun with someone Friday. We printed out two copies of the New York Times Hard Sudoku puzzle and sat together on a sofa working separately, only one of us was talking . . . numbers and remarking on how much she had done and how well it was going. So I sighed and asked her to desist, but that only made her think she had more of an edge by doing it.

I remarked that I needed an eraser and concentrated on “DO NOT LISTEN TO THE RANDOM NUMBERS SHE IS CALLING OUT AS YOU WORK.” Hubris was strong, but hubris is not the Force and as she made more distracting chatter, I quietly said, “I’m finished.” The look on her face was not priceless, but it wasn’t cheap. I’m gloating; I will meet Karma; I don’t care.

Just when I thought it was safe to look at a politic page, this popped up. I have no idea why this man so annoys me – well, maybe I do.