Crazy Glazy Days at Nogglestead

Well, on Monday, I made light of schools cancelling based on predictions of an ice storm.

A couple hours later, both of my boys’ schools sent them home early, and they have not been to school since. Today is Thursday; one boy has off tomorrow because teachers are people, too, and they need mental health days built into the school year. The other has school scheduled, but the principal sent out an email that says “See you on Monday!” which is odd, because today is not Friday, and Monday is Presidents’ Day.

The issue has not been a snowfall of any note (so far–see below, or maybe just the next sentence). We had freezing drizzle on Tuesday, which got the boys of school on Tuesday and Wednesday; and although it did not drizzle exactly yesterday, we did get some freezing fog which doesn’t really fall per se but does leave a glazing of ice on the things it touched, like plants and roadways. So they’re off today as well. And it has started to snow, so perhaps the younger’s school will just call the whole week a wash.

My beautiful wife was out on Tuesday night and said it was a bad drive–mostly, the freezing rain kept freezing on her windshield. On Wednesday morning, she was scheduled to do a livestreamed presentation from a studio in central Springfield. About twenty-five minutes before she was scheduled to leave, she awakened me and asked me if I would drive. Of course I did–I haven’t lost control of my vehicle in an ice storm in like three or four years, so I am just the man for that job.

I schlepped her up there and then sat in an underheated warehouse studio while she streamed live.

In case you’re wondering what talking dog joke I tell at about 4:30, off camera and before the audio and presentation begins, it’s this one:

A man walking down the street comes to a sign that says, “Talking dog: $10.” So he goes up to the house and knocks on the door. A man answers, and the first guy says, “I understand you have a talking dog for sale.”

The dog nudges his way to the door and says, “You bet. I was in the military, an explosive sniffing dog, and I found a lot of IEDs and saved a lot of our guys. After my tour was up, I worked for the highway patrol, and I found many kilos of bad stuff headed for the streets. Then I worked as a rescue dog on the beach, saving people who were drowning.”

“Wow, and he’s only ten dollars?” the man said.

“Yeah. He’s a liar. He ain’t done any of that,” the owner said.

Heather smiled and the host roared with laughter because he’s very polite. But I do like my talking dog jokes.

At any rate, so it’s been a cozy week of mostly going nowhere with a nice wood fire burning. One of my belated Christmas gifts was a cord or so of wood to burn this year instead of Duraflame logs. The man who delivered it asked how many cords of wood we burned every year–I didn’t know as I’ve not burned wood much, but judging how we’ve gone through this cord, it’s probably between three and four starting a fire about five at night and burning it into the evening and starting a little earlier on weekends or snow days.

I wish I could say I have been getting a lot of reading done, but I don’t tend to like to sit down during the day or afternoon with a book–I really am only comfortable doing it after dinner and the evening chores. Because this is good weather to sit and watch the snow with a book on your lap.