November without Snow

Here we are, end of November, and there's been no snowfall in these parts yet. No significant snow at all, beyond a few fleeting and evanescent flurries. No accumulation on the ground at all. Odd, because usually around here we've had a snowstorm or two by the end of November. Some years, several severe snowstorms.

But this year here we are, on December's doorstep, and no snow so far; in fact, no snow in the forecast for this coming week. I'm wondering how long this can keep up. When I was a kid I loved snow. Now that I have to drive in it, not so much.

Thoughts on Food

Well, having just been through one holiday where I ate more than I really should've, and being on the verge of another holiday season when (if I count correctly) I'll have to be attending something like ten or eleven Christmas parties, I must admit that I find it all just vaguely annoying. I mean, I like to eat, but I've never really cared to fuss over the picayune details of what I eat, as long as it's basically food I enjoy.

A hamburger and french fries. Pizza. Or, as on Thanksgiving, a ham steak with a couple of different vegetables on the side. Beyond that, I really don't give a damn about the culinary details. I couldn't care less exactly how to prepare the food, or which spices to use, or what refinements might be applied in the kitchen. To me, one wine is pretty much the same as another. Beef is beef. Mashed potatoes are mashed potatoes. Long as it doesn't trigger my gag reflex, I'm easy to please.

Though now I do have to eat more carefully, due to my health problems. And I've always been annoyed by the obligation of running the gauntlet of all those ten or eleven Christmas parties, for work, church, community, neighbors, family, and friends. Especially I've long been annoyed by the social pressure to eat at these events, eat, eat, have some more, have seconds, have thirds, have fourths; and sometimes people are not at all subtle in laying this pressure on you. Even before it was a health issue for me, I was always annoyed by this pressure to eat, intermingled as it was with pressure for enforced gregariousness and enforced jollity.

Still, I'll manage. Only please don't ask me to compliment you on the fine foodie details of how you cooked the meal, or which wine you selected to "compliment" the food. I honestly can't tell the difference.

Thanksgiving

And off on the road, making the long trip to visit family for Thanksgiving today and tomorrow. Call it five hours on the road today, another three hours on the road tomorrow.

And I've been heard to complain about the common tendency to turn holidays into a "road rally"! Oh well...

A True Fact Which Is However Irrelevant to Almost Anything

When Nixon was president I was learning Spanish.

Two-Thousand-Ten or Twenty-Ten?

As the decade odometer is about to roll over to 2010, I've been suspecting that we may see a concerted push to get people to pronounce it as "twenty-ten" instead of "two-thousand-ten." Just a suspicion, but it won't go away.

And my suspicion is also that it will be primarily liberals and blue state types who will be pushing for us to say "twenty-ten." You know, on the general grounds that "two-thousand-ten" is imperial and retrograde, and that we must stand against anything grand or ornate, and in favor of blonde wood, modern concrete-slab architecture, and tighter federal control of your every fugitive sleeping cry in the middle of the night.

My suspicion is not without its empirical correlate. Out here in deep rural America where I live -- a thoroughly red-state part of the country -- almost everyone says "two-thousand-nine" and "two-thousand-ten." Whereas in the media -- y'know, media, liberal bias -- I often hear announcers and talking heads saying "twenty-ten." They can't quite get away with "twenty-nine," though I've heard that one too on occasion; but often from them it's "twenty-oh-nine," which has been just awkward enough so far to give "two-thousand-nine" a hairsbreadth edge. But with the coming of "twenty-ten" they'll be in the clear, and in a position to pull ahead on the straightaway.

So in the months ahead don't be surprised if you start hearing voices in the media chiding or shaming those of us who stick to the imperial "two-thousand" format, and not so gently pressuring us to say "twenty-ten" as a way of proving to our cultured despisers that we're not so hopelessly Neanderthal after all.

May be just my paranoia, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised.

Foggy

It was foggy out this morning, and the world vanished beneath a weight of white. Indefined, shrouded, hidden in cotton batting. Looking out a front window, I could scarcely see across the road. A cozy world made newly strange, in which "there was no more near nor far"; enchanting if you don't have to go out in it.

Gaining Weight

Yes, I'm afraid I'm gaining weight again. After three years in which I lost a significant amount of weight, about 40 pounds, and then started gaining some of it back again.

These past few months I'd thought I was losing weight again. But I'm afraid not. Damn! I feel positively thin, compared to what I weighed several years ago; but, for the sake of my health, I've got to lose weight, lose a lot more weight. For the sake of the health problems I've been contending with these past few months.

I suppose the solution is to exercise more. Which I've been doing, more than I used to, these past few months. But I sure could stand to push myself farther on the exercise front.

Or take the time to cook up more stews with fresh vegetables, instead of eating so much of the time (relatively healthy food) out of a can.