Category: big weather

Old problem in a new location

You know…it’s been a while.

A good long while. Since back in the I-40 and I-25 days.

Many years past.

Yes, today I had a moment of cellular memory.

We had an especially windy day in the Bay Area.

Sure, people talk about it being windy here, but they don’t know from wind. They don’t know about that gap between the Sandias and Manzanos channeling the wind, giving it force, and knocking you down in the parking lot.

They don’t know about tumbleweeds the size of a small house bouncing joyfully across the road with a velocity relatively equal to an overloaded Mack Truck coming out of the Glorieta Pass, air brakes screaming.

No, they don’t know.

But today came close.

As I drove home down 280 in the howling wind, my hands and arms moved without me. Took up the familiar position of about a 27 and a half degree angle turn on the steering wheel.

Turning into the wind in order to keep the car between the white lines.

And then…that moment when going under the overpass and wooop, for half a second you get a wind break and steer, steer, steer to keep from broadsiding the person next to you then you are out of the wind break and steer, steer, steer to keep from sliding off in the other direction.

My hands and arms didn’t need my brain to tell them what to do. They knew.

Honed and skilled by the unforgiving winds of the New Mexico desert. They knew.

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind. (aw man! I can’t believe I *went there*!)

Check the signs

The government cares. No really, they do. And so with their help, I’ve taken a good look at myself today. I mean, a real good look.

How are YOU feeling? Maybe you could check in too?

Herewith:

Getting Through Tough Economic Times from the Department of Health and Human Services.

“It is important to be aware of signs that financial problems may be adversely affecting your emotional or mental well being –or that of someone you care about.”

In other words….Did Mr. Jones take all your cash? Does that tick you off?

Let’s check in, shall we?

Warning Signs

Persistent Sadness/Crying

Only when I look at my bank account.

Excessive Anxiety

Only when I look at my bank account.

Lack of Sleep/Constant Fatigue

Yes. But I can’t really blame the economy for the fact that we are having cold windy nights, and since my personal internal thermometer tends to run hot, the cat and The Good Man sleep on top of me to stay warm.

Excessive Irritability/Anger

Only at 3:00 in the morning when I’m burning up hot and can’t get fourteen pounds of cat or six feet two inches of husband off of me.

Increased drinking

Yeah, a little. The Good Man, his friend and me did have two bottles of wine on Sunday (at a bar-b-que). Did you know that Lambrusco is really tasty and drinks awfully easily? Did you know that with enough fizzy red wine in your gullet, you kinda feel a lot better about a whole lot of things in your life? Well, that and the red meat. And the smoked fish from Alaska. Damn…that was a fine dinner…..

Illicit drug use, including misuse of medications

Does Claritin count? Because with this wind, my eyes and nose are like faucets. I may be abusing the stuff…not sure.

Difficulty paying attention or staying focused

What’s that over there? I think I’m hungry. What’s the square root of 686?

Apathy – not caring about things that are usually important to you

Whatever.

Not being able to function as well at work, school or home

Let’s see…after a marathon two days of writing a presentation in which I basically justified my job to our new austere European owners, today I’m at work with nothing to do and writing on my blog.

Not sure I could be less value added if I tried. Or should that be value subtracted? Not sure how the absolute values work in relation to lazyosity.

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Hmm. Ok. So I’m not sure I can draw any conclusions from that exercise.

And I think they may have left a few off the list. My additions:

Do you check your online money accounts more than three times a day?

Do you find yourself in the lunchroom with your coworkers discussing tax rates?

Do you cut coupons where you rarely did before?

Do you and your spouse look for “free” events, samples, activities and services?

Do you calculate how much gas it would take to get to a destination as a “go/no go” decision on running an errand?

Do you watch too much CNBC and then find yourself yelling at Jim Cramer and blaming him for a lot of things that aren’t actually his fault? (this one applies to Jon Stewart only)

Do you have fantasies about how good it used to be…in 2006?

If so…seek help.

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Ok, ok, I kid, I kid, but the online resource is actually pretty serious.

Link thanks to Bruce Daniels over at the ABQjournal.

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“I’m certain I have no idea what you are blathering on about, human. Now feed me.

Spring has sprung!

Here’s the proof! Look!

Daffodils*, in full bloom, bright yellow in a pretty purple vase in my office! Look at that, spring, sunshine, joy, leaping, flowers, yes!

Wait, stop…don’t look out that window! Don’t do it, I beg you!

Galldarn fog going and ruining my whole Spring thang. WHY!!?!?!

I just want a little sun. I just want to frolic. Is that too much to ask of you, Bay Area temperature inversion? You and your marine layer can BITE ME!

New Mexico wouldn’t let me down this way…it’s supposed to be 80 in Las Cruces today……..

*cranky*

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*Daffodils courtesy of the American Cancer Society Daffodil Days.

I have the power!!

[evil, maniacal laugh] bwa ha ha ha ha ha hee haw heee….*cough, sputter, cough*….ahem.

I’m back now.

Anyhow, I seem to have learned to use a fabulous power first taught to me in my youth.

The power of guilt.

Oh yes.

First example:

The center dial on my bathtub is broken, meaning that it will only shower, it won’t bath. This is upsetting. I am a fan of the hot bath. Especially in the winter. Particularly when it’s cold and stormy outside as it is today.

This has gone unfixed for quite some time, despite reporting it dutifully to my landlord. He said, “I need to find a new set of knobs…I’ll get to it.”

And he didn’t.

The landlord’s son lives a street over and came by our place about an electrical problem two weeks ago. So I bugged him to bug his dad about the bathtub. The son promised he’d fix it himself.

He didn’t.

A couple weeks passed.

This weekend, the son was mowing our front lawn. I said, “sorry to ask, but I need to remind you about the bathtub.”

This young man was *immediately* doused deeply in sheepish guilt, he apologized a bunch and promised to fix the bathtub, which he did on Sunday morning. And apologized some more.

Aaaah. Guilt is good.

Next example:

After my dental work yesterday, I woke up with a swollen face and a nifty bruise on my cheek. I’m thrilled to have to explain this to my coworkers.

My dentist, being the kind sort that he is, emailed me today to check to see how I was doing after the work. I emailed him back a photo of my bruised face and suggested he won’t be getting any new referrals from my coworkers.

He called me right away and apologized profusely and told me this sometimes happens (nicked a blood vessel when he did the injections) and that he felt terrible this had happened.

A man who inflicts severe pain for a living feels *terrible*.

Heh.

This feels gooood. I’m learning what my mom has known for years…guilt is quite the propellant.

In case you are still in training wheels and need to learn how to properly give the guilt, here’s a wikihow to get you over the hump.

Only downside? This power can be used on me, too.

Damn my Catholic upbringing!

Keep it to yourself, sister

The weather outside yesterday was what they call “low cloud cover”. Low ceiling, gray clouds, occasional sprinkling rain.

This makes most people think, “brr, cold” and toss on all matter of arctic gear.

This is not true for me. Low cloud cover means the heat is held in and the drizzly rain means humidity.

See, I was brought up in New Mexico and my body has been attuned to be a convection cooled device. Or, more accurately, an evaporative cooled device. I sweat. The dry desert air slurps that up, thus cooling my rig and allowing me to continue on.

I’m attuned to this and it suits me just fine.

When it’s warmish and humid, I cannot effectively evaporative cool my hard working human mo-chine.

You can ask anyone who knows me, my internal temp tends to run a little hot anyway. The frosty pawed feline doesn’t favor me as a sleeping device because she thinks I’m nice, ok?

So what all this means is, even on a cloudy drizzly day like today, I don’t want anything to do with a jacket.

This tends to make the biddies and would-be work moms crazy.

“Aren’t you cold!?!” they shriek.

“Where is your jacket?!?!” they demand in harpy voices.

Look, I have a mother. She’s a fine, upstanding lady. She taught me to be self-sufficient. If you are cold, put on a jacket. If you aren’t cold, don’t. If you are cold and don’t put on a jacket, it’s your own damn fault.

Mom and I have been in agreement on this for years.

Yesterday, I was wearing a sweater dress with a long sleeved sweater over, tights and knee-high black boots. That is practically Nanook of the North for me, and yet, one of my menopausal coworkers eyed me up and down and screeched “Aren’t you cold!?!” because I was sans jacket.

It was close to sixty frapping degrees outside, but it was drizzly, so that must mean everyone should wear an overcoat.

An overcoat? Hell. No. I was hot in what I was wearing!

But if I had said to her, “Hey, you look a little hot, why don’t you take some clothes off” I would have been reported to HR.

It’s a bizarre up world out there, and I’m but a passenger on this carnival ride.

Image via FreeFoto.com