2022 Life Logs, Day 33: Six More Weeks of Winter, Or Not
Date: Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Weather: Overcast, Warmer, Misty PM; High Temp 43, Low Temp 35 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Depending on which groundhog you believe in, we will have six more weeks of winter. Or maybe we will not. Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania saw his shadow this morning which means six more weeks of winter. But Ms. G, the Massachusetts state groundhog, does not agree with Phil. She did not see her shadow and predicts an early spring. I’ll go with Ms. G which means spring is almost here. Sounds good to me.
My car started today with no issue, so I was able to drive to Sullivan Tire using my spare ‘donut’ and get my repaired tire put on. I hate that I picked up a nail somewhere, especially in a fairly new tire, but I just have to hope the repair fixed the problem. They checked out my battery and it is fine. So, I don’t know why the care wouldn’t start. Just hope that doesn’t happen again.
Writing continued today and Windbird has still have not left Tonga. Maybe tomorrow. The reason we were still in Tonga is that we were waiting and waiting for a decent weather window. I loved the following quote we received in an email from a New Zealand weather service to make recommendations for our passage. We were paying good money for recommendation like this. “Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos. The following ideas (included in the email) come from the patterned world of weather maps, so please fine-tune to your place.” Really? So basically, weather people were predicting from patterned models, but the local weather was experiencing more of the chaos than the pattern. Exactly how were we supposed to ‘fine-tune’ that? We thought that was what we were paying the weather service to do. After that email, we changed weather services. We employed Commander Weather in New Hampshire. They analyzed the patterns and the chaos and got us safely to New Zealand!
At 9pm every week night, I stop whatever I am doing, get on my exercise bike and peddle away while watching The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Some people can’t deal with Rachel’s style of going over and over a point to make sure it is impossible to not understand. Maybe I’m dense, but I appreciate the thoroughness. More than that, I appreciate that she sticks with a story until whatever issue is resolved. An example of that was her coverage of the Flint, Michigan, water disaster. This week I have really appreciated her reporting of the bomb threats on the campuses of historically black colleges and universities. Yesterday, on the first day of Black History Month, 16 of those campuses received bomb threats. And it was not the first time in recent days. Many received threats the day before and earlier in January. The threats are being made by people who say they are neo-Nazi’s. She has also reported this week on the neo-Nazi protests at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, in Orlando this past weekend, as well as other places around the country. It is depressing to watch these reports, but we all need to be watching them. Hiding from what is happening in this country is a dangerous thing. I wish we could wave a magic wand and make it go away. But we know that is not going to happen. We need to be informed and dedicated to doing whatever it takes to rid our country of this hatred. Love should always trump hate. Unfortunately, Trump loves to spread hate and he continues to create a very dangerous situation. I can’t believe intelligent people still stand by him. But they do. I can list a number of reasons why, but I cannot understand. Watching the Rachel Maddow Show has helped me to understand, but Rachel is taking a hiatus until April to do other things. I am going to miss her thorough and thoughtful new coverage. What am I going to watch at 9pm every night while I ride my bike? Suggestions anyone?
