It's Only A Cold.

 It starts as a low rattle.  The rattle becomes a hoarse cough.  Then you stand up and the sneezes sneak up on you.  Now the sneezes never attack one at a time, but rather they come as a pack of wolves and wait till you're not expecting the onslaught.  Let loose the dogs of war, then the nose dribbles.  

Breathing becomes optional and the color blue a normal hue.  Shiva reborn, the destroyer walks and the body raises it's temperature to 104 Fahrenheit.  You turn around to see who's behind you, and the body begins to ache.  Not a real hurt pain, not the kind of pain that is easily ignored deadened with an Aspirin, the kind of pain that brings an almost tear to the eye and that knot in the jaw bubbles.  

A Native Grandma puts a poltus on your chest, an Irish Grand-mom gives you a two fingered shot of Whiskey.  That one endowed with multiple wisdoms uses both, and why not?  

There might be a moment when standing up becomes somewhat of a challenge.  The room spins, the ears ring and the floor may or may not come up to meet you at an accelerated rate.  If the circumstances are in your favor at those moments you are close enough to the porcelain throne to let the vomitus jet expel safely from the body.   If not, there will be a mess to deal with.  Eventually the sleeping allows you to catch it.  

The rising sun brings a promise of a new beginning.  Tea, honey, and lemon speak to you.  An aspirin fights the lingering aches and pains.  The body slowly wakes, coffee is in the cup and the morning routine awaits.  It is a new day.

Peace and Balance,

John 

The Expense of Winter Wind.

 

Sometimes there is a little expense involved with surviving a good ole fashioned "Cold Snap".  This has been an expensive winter.  In order to save on oil as the price per gallon sent me into a tizzy, I started using some space heaters to take up the slack.  Thing about space heaters is apparently they use one hell of allot of juice.  I received my last power bill and had a minor spasm.  Now, I really can't put the blame on the power company so much as myself for consciously making the decision to use them in the first place.  

This past weekend Northern New England experienced a frigged air blast from the Great Northern Hell.  Temps dropped below -30 Saturday night without the wind giving it's 2 cents.  It was cold.  Again, I've made the decision to use space heaters.  One in the basement, one in the kitchen, one in our bedroom, and one in a back hall that has an open wall to direct wind.  They were all running, but I am pleased that I've skirted the possibility of frozen pipes.  Extra blankets and sweaters helped support the thin blood of age. 

What I did do, that I suppose in retrospect I shouldn't have, was ignore my vehicle.  The battery died.  I attached it to a trickle charge on my battery charger and crossed my fingers.  What I found out was that it is possible for the temperature to dip down cold enough that charging the battery is just a practice of folly.  It took all afternoon long, and into the evening before I could start my CRV.  After it started I let it run for a good hour to charge, warm and insure that it would start in the morning.  During that process our youngish son came home for a short visit and pointed out the apparent flat tire situation caused by the coldness.  I waited till morning to deal with that.  

In the morning I started up my pony and proceeded to fill tires with air using my Slime Green air pump plugged into the power plug of the car.  It works well, but takes a goodly amount of time.  

As Cold Snaps go, this was a good one, and prompted me to purchase a starter pack, more power than one person should use in a lifetime, and a possible new battery.  Dang Cold Snap got expensive.

Peace and Balance,

John

They Call him Mr. Freeze

 Ice is wonderful thing.  We use it to cool our drinks, play our games on, and in the northern reaches of New Hampshire's hinter land, a source of testosterone filled chase the puck around the rink thing. Ice can be used to contract the the size of metal objects, or temper hot steel for fine tuning very sharp implements. Ice the other Fire.

Ice is good until is becomes bad.  Later this evening we are supposed to begin experiencing the effects of an evil form of ice, Freezing Rain. Freezing rain is the product of a real sadistic sky god who for all practical purposes has decided to pee partially frozen stuff all over the roads, wires, windshields, and sometimes freezing the car doors shut.  How do I know this being is sadistic?  I hear the laughter from the sky and screams of chaos from the ground.  That's proof enough.

As I said later this evening we are supposed to start experiencing the effects of freezing rain.  The kid next door will be skating down the streets just for giggles, and I'll be tippy toeing across my drive way to keep from landing on my ass.  I have high hopes that the forecast will change to snow.

AccuWeather and NOAH never agree on their forecasting.  One predicts doom and gloom while the other tends to be a little more positively reinforced.  AccuWeather is telling us that the pending ice storm is being upgraded to a couple inches of snow followed by a warming trend.  I like that forecast much better than NOAH's prediction of a coating of ice over everything making it impossible to drive, walk, or possibly get into the vehicle.  I'm not a fan of ice.  Where is the Heat Mizer when you need him?

So, at this point in time, I have my fingers crossed in hopes that things will change by the time the evening news comes on at ten.  After all we of the North Country are used to, "Wait a minute and things will change."

Peace and Balance,

John