Being snowed in for a day or two always sounds delightful, until you think about the possibility of the power going off. (And of course the homeless folks, etc.)
I agree mp. I am concerned about folks who do not have shelter.
Stay warm FG!
Keep thinking we need to get a generator, the house is even wired for a permanent one but so much $$$$.
Where do you store the fuel? Does is smell in the summer?
rant ahead. As you all know I have had a huge adjustment to H’s semi retirement but things have moved along and
have been pretty much OK. He has begun working from home two days a month on the computer where he answers calls for 8 hours. He somehow thinks that sitting in the middle of the open floor room plan of kitchen/dining/living rooms is Ok. Not invasive at all X_X .
A few weeks ago I had an important get together with a friend and there he was…all day long.
Even in the lower level family room you can hear him.
Set up a desk in HIS music room and he agreed to use it. This a.m. he tells me that the computer signal is not strong enough. UH? “you have known for two weeks and you tried it for the first time today? But then how did you use it there last year for another occasion”.
I think there is always a fix while he shrugs at problems. Turns out he thinks, when I say we will hire someone to make the upgrade, that a $60 router boost will take care of it.
“then why did tell me, with a smirk, that you needed to stay in the communal rooms of house?”
Ok, did not say the smirk part but he seemed very happy about it.
I also said I am doing a huge shop today and will be bringing in groceries and making noise–grr.
Sorry so long. I feel better.
Shout out to all who are in the path of Jonas – hope you stay safe and warm. (So we’re naming almost every larger storm these days?) I, for one, am perfectly fine with being pretty much out of this storm – maybe just an inch or two. After last winter, those of us in the Boston area deserve a break!
@oregon101 - we have a permanent generator at the beach house. It comes on almost immediately whenever the power goes off, doesn’t smell and automatically does a weekly test. It runs on propane, which is also what we use for our heating system – so we have a large underground propane tank.
Also, a number of years ago now I had to make the adjustment to H working from home. It was very tough in the beginning – I was used to the house being “my space” during the day, M - F. Here in Cambridge the living room, dining area and kitchen all run together and he does like to park himself in the middle of it for phone calls. Occasionally he’ll shoot me dirty looks if I’m cooking (and therefore making some amount of noise) and he’s on the phone, but I ignore him – he can go elsewhere (like downstairs to his desk!); I can’t. These days we’ve pretty much reached a truce – he knows not to ask me what’s for lunch or what I’m doing every minute of every day.
Soooo … that plan we (H) had of driving to FL and spending the month of February? And staying at his B & SIL’s new house? And taking our cute but wacky, carsick prone dog? That’s not happening. When H first started talking about this back in the late fall, the first thing I said was, “They may not want the dog there.” All the floors are (obviously) new, and some are wood. Fast forward to last week when H FINALLY got around to asking his B if us staying a month was OK. Yup, that was fine; we could stay as long as we want. And the dog? He and his wife talked it over and decided “No.” They’re afraid if they let us bring the dog, then they couldn’t say no to another SIL who has 2 dogs, or their nephew who has 1, etc., etc. PLUS, they were, in fact, concerned about the floors. (Heck, I’m not thrilled with what our pup has done to all OUR wood floors!) End result? H is a little bummed, but isn’t upset with his B & SIL – I guess he just assumed they’d be OK with the plan. I’m actually somewhat relieved – a month was just too long, IMO, unless we were staying at our own place. Additionally, we have a 3 week trip to Asia to see S planned for April/May.
We are going to FL for 1 week at the end of February, though – flying, and without the dog. H’s winter Board of Trustees meeting for his alma mater is in Cocoa Beach. We’ll add on a few days at the end.
I do think the bus needs to take us all to visit @shawbridge on the houseboat! The setting just sounds like a party waiting to happen.
Can the bus fly? Because with the snow we have gotten so far, that’s the only way my house is accessible right now!
I worked from home yesterday (and might do so on Monday 
). I prefer to set up the laptop on the kitchen table, which H does not like. He would prefer that I work upstairs in my sitting room where I have a desk. He goes into work very early and is home in the afternoon between 3 and 4. It doesn’t bother me at all if he turns on TV, or starts dinner or whatever. I feel very isolated upstairs.
My parents are in Florida and I have a flight on Wednesday AM. Should be able to escape by then.
Good thing S left yesterday, I woke up this morning and Jonas has arrived! I’ve been out twice with the old dog, the snow is really coming down and blowing.
When I’m not out on the road, I work from home. I created a little office right off the laundry area. It’s very small, but I like it because it’s out of the way/quiet. Sometimes I have video meetings with my co-workers, and I have to remind H not to walk behind me unless he wants to appear on camera. So far he’s only flashed them once.
ararab - that sounds unbelievably cool! I don’t think I understood though… Will you be curating the collections?
I love the completer idea. I have many of 1914 edition of the Harvard Classics…I think my sisters may have filched a couple here and there.
Snowing like crazy here!
I’m on call if the public shelter in town opens. Yay… 
It has stopped snowing. H and I went 4 rounds of shoveling and still have about another 6 inches that fell since to shovel. However there has been no plowing at all on our street so I am pretty sure I’ll be working from home again tomorrow. As long as I get out on Wednesday to get my flight to Florida I am ok.
Hope everyone is safe and sound! Although I’d like a snow day, yesterday was pretty nice. High 40s, sunny, no wind. We did some yard work and I even sat in the sun for about a half hour.
Younger D’s former roommate is no longer pregnant (miscarriage, which sounds credible.). The roomate’s father is an idiot … Talking about cutting off your nose to spite your face. He is still paying rent on the college apartment. Has kicked his D out but is paying her rent there also until she gets a job. He sold her car as a punishment. So she can’t get a job because she has no car. I know there are two sides to every story but at minimum, his decisions are financially irrational.
^ mp - You are right about that father being an idiot. I’m sure he is angry as well as disappointed, but punishing her in this way does not make sense. Poor girl.
Every time I think that I could have been a much better parent, I read about someone like that dad, and I realize that I didn’t actually do too badly.
D ventured out of her Manhattan apartment today and made it to the gym a couple of blocks away. Climbing over the barriers of snow left by the plows sounded hazardous. Glad the subway stop is only a block away for tomorrow morning, and just around the corner from her office at the other end of the trip.
Meanwhile, we hit 60 degrees yesterday. Today was not quite as nice, but still… we’ll get ours, probably next month. Or, worst of all, in April.
@woody – no, I won’t have that job – the curation will be left to the experts. I’m just going to admire the Milton and the Bible, both of which are supposed to be remarkable.
We climbed out yesterday to go to church - knew it would be low attendance, but more people came than we expected. Our building crew is fabulous - all the walks and sidewalks where we live are totally cleared. But walking to church (about 1.5 blocks) discovered the sidewalks were in all sorts of states. Some were cleared, some not, some in the process. The intersection on the church side was cleared out, but the intersection on the other side I had to walk through was an absolute mess - nothing like climbing in crazy high snow banks to cross the street, and getting splattered by cars!
Noticed the church attendees were overwhelmingly parents with small children. You forget how much energy young children have. Lots of young kids in our building complex were playing in the snow yesterday.
Had a nice conversation with D yesterday - so far she is happy with new job. Still has lots of ways to go learning everything, but the pace is much more reasonable. She was going in to work every weekend at her previous position. This company doesn’t allow anyone to come into the office on the weekend - you can work remotely, but the office is closed.
c-q, is this job number 2 or job number 3 for her?
missypie, I am always dumbstruck by parents who try to teach their kids lessons with money that will hurt their future. There are some things, like drug addiction, that deserve a different kind of response. As someone said, we don’t know the facts here, but if she became pregnant, help her sort out her life in a way that helps her going forward and then make sure she knows how and what she needs to do to continue to merit the help. Don’t punish them by ruining their future.
Our yoga rabbi friend/cousin and his new wife were going to stay with us for 2 days, but flying back east seemed ill-advised, so they actually left after three extra nights. JetBlue let them switch in advance. The weather goes between sunny, grey and rainy. Yesterday, we had two rainbows (I think I posted on on my FaceBook page). We took a walking/driving tour of SF (the new wife lived here for 8 years), went to the Twin Peaks (where it was cold and windy) and for dinner at an upscale Peruvian restaurant in Noe Valley. He and I saw the Pats-Broncos game at a bar in SF where two nice younger women tried to pick us up. A couple of days before, we went on a hike to the beach. Marin is beautiful and a little rugged.
shawbridge - it’s her 2nd full-time job after college. She had a few temp jobs prior to the first job. She worked there slightly over 1.5 years. She took the time to contact the recruiter she worked with to land the first position. The recruiter was interested in getting some details so they can successfully recruit for the company in the future. They are going to describe her position a little differently based on D’s input.
Skip this post if you don’t want to be sad. Seriously.
Remember how summer before last, FIL got a puppy and I was saying that (for myriad reasons) it was not a good idea for someone in his mid-80s to get a puppy? Well, BIL and SIL were visiting around Christmas…FIL had bites on his hand…turns out the dog can’t be petted without biting because FIL has terribly abused the totally untrained dog. The good news is that BIL and SIL took the dog home with them. They are trying to make it work. I don’t know enough about dogs to know whether an abused 20 month old dog can be rehabilitated into a good family pet (with the benefit of experienced dog owners but not professional therapy.) I’m at least glad the dog is in kind hands. FIL really deserves to be turned over to the authorities.
c_q. I remembered a prior job, but that must have been the temp position.
While I was away, ShawWife and our next door neighbors (old friends from our hometown who know ShawSon pretty well) and our next door neighbors came over for dinner with a Jewish psychologist, who was saying it was terrible how the Chinese females were competing far too successfully for Jewish males – according to her, they are coached to be very compliant to catch and retain the males (no bait and switch) as they have been told their survival comes from getting a good husband. According to her, no sincere feeling need be involved and Jewish females (in particular, like her daughter) can’t compete. This seems a little farfetched (especially in GF’s case as she is a tough cookie and went to two top US schools). But, ShawSon does say that there is a disproportionately large number of Jewish male-Asian female couples at his university and GF’s mother’s first questions about ShawSon were: 1) Is he Jewish? 2) Is he tall? and 3) What is he studying? This all got discussed with the yoga rabbi’s wife and the neighbor’s wife. Interestingly, the yoga rabbi’s ex-husband (about whom she has nothing negative to say and says he is a bright, successful, family-oriented Jewish man) has married a much younger Chinese woman. So, who knows.
I forgot to mention that ShawSon and GF came up for lunch on the houseboat this weekend with the yoga rabbi and his wife. Afterwards, ShawSon and GF stopped over to say hello to our neighbors. By coincidence (maybe), the yoga rabbi’s wife is a clinical psychologist – more on the humanist or transcendental end than the behavioral end – who seems really discerning about people and the other wife was a psychotherapist as well (no longer, though). As a result of this prior conversation, the two psychologists were carefully observing GF during their interactions. After ShawSon and GF left, we went out to dinner with the two couples and got the report (we just thought we were going out to dinner, but not so). Though the yoga rabbi’s wife says that she doesn’t read the movements of Asian faces as well (more mask-like with respect to the muscles Caucasians tend to move when expressing emotion), GF passed their scrutiny with flying colors. Self-assured and composed, direct, loving. Our neighbor is already planning the wedding. This all cracked me (and her husband) up.
As they were getting ready to leave, ShawSon said, “Where’s my phone?” and GF said, “I’ve got it in my pocket” (in essence, I knew you were going to misplace it and then we’d have to look for it while we were leaving, so as part of my normal minding of you, I just took care of it). As someone who is very organized conceptually but not organized with respect to physical objects and physical space, this made me smile.
I think I need a yoga rabbi…and the clinical psychologist, too. Can they join us on the next bust trip?
I hope we don’t have a bust trip. But, they are great people. Lots of spirituality and depth. Plus, he’s a serious outdoors guy from Western Canada – hiking, double black diamond skiing, mountain biking etc. And they are great guests.
mp I very much remembered the puppy story and what a terrible idea it was for your in laws to get that puppy. Poor thing. I really hope the dog adjusts to his (her?) new loving home.