yesterday: strenuous

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On Thursday (backing up a bit), I got to the bus stop and waited a while. I finally called the Superintendent's office and found that school was delayed two hours, then got home to find two robo-calls on the phone, telling us the same thing. But that was a picnic.

Friday, the robo-call came in a timely fashion, so I knew right off the bat that Sarah was coming home at noon because of the snow. I tried to get a day's worth of stuff done in the morning, including about an hour of piano playing, then I stepped outside, where the snow was already in progress. It was cold enough that I swept the two inches or so off the car with a push broom, and then drove in the shallow ruts over to the bus stop. It was hard to see out, as the snow covered all the windows constantly. Sarah and I were going to go out for lunch, but she was invited over to Traigh's, and they fed her a Happy Meal, so I got a Subway sandwich (a BMT) after filling the gas tank. At about 1:45, I started out to get Sarah.

The snow, meanwhile, had been falling vigorously. Enthusiastically. Deeply. I wasted a couple of minutes before deciding it would be better to walk over and get Sarah. We tramped back in my footprints from the way over, slipping and sliding occasionally. Then we were home, and I gave Sarah the news that Cathy would be at work until 10:00, and Sarah began her work of demanding that I entertain her. I started by going out and shoveling the sidewalks and driveways. She helped for a minute, then watched from inside. The snow was still falling, but I figured there'd be less to shovel later.

We passed some time upstairs in the bedroom, with the space heater on. When it was time for supper, we decided to go out to Friendly's. Perhaps not a great idea.

Thanks to my earlier work, our sidewalk was only under four inches of snow. Once we were on Westfield Road, though, there was a lot more snow on the walks. We got as far as the traffic light before I decided we should turn back and take the car. I had to yell at Sarah to get her to change course.Then I had to excavate the car, and shovel the walk and drive again. Luckily, Neil was across the street with his snowblower, and he kindly finished the job for me, so I was only wielding the shovel for about 35 minutes.

We got to Friendly's at 6:30 (maybe it was 45 minutes), and they had a sign up that said they were closing at 7:00, but they seated us and got us our food very quickly. We were finished by just about seven, and returned home to find the snow still falling, but much more slowly. The sidewalk, which I had made a path in, was now clean to the edges, and both driveways were refreshingly clear of snow. This was good, as I found that my left hand had a nasty broken blister under my ring finger.

Sarah and I finished our day quietly. She was asleep by 9:30, and I went down and amused myself until Cathy got home, and then turned in.

Today, school started on time. I saw Sarah off and came home and shoveled everything again.

Tonight we'll go out and have our regular bi-weekly sushi. Sarah says we can go anywhere I want to, but with the roads in their present charming condition, sushi at Oishi should be perfectly fine. We might go out for another meal tomorrow, in honor of me not being 50 any more. Or in honor of sdn's birthday. Or the 40th anniversary of Walt Disney dying.

Now I've been in long enough that 64 degrees is starting to feel a little cool, so I think I'll turn on the space heater.
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by the way (something interesting)

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Apologies to everybody who already knew this and, perhaps, tried repeatedly to tell me about it, but I was watching a video on YouTube in the fullscreen view, and when it was over, small circles appeared on the screen. These, I saw immediately, were the equivalent of the suggested videos that pop up at the end of a video in the normal view. Each one had a small picture inside it, showing a frozen moment from the motion picture it represented.

Looking closer, there was a larger circle, and smaller circles seemed to have emitted from it. I hovered the mouse over one of the smaller circles, and got two things simultaneously. One was an explanatory caption with an arrow, similar to the tags Chester Gould used to put in Dick Tracy to identify Tracy's wrist radio or possibly significant clues. The other thing was that more circles silently popped out from behind the one I was on, which now became the largest circle on the screen (fullscreen, as you'll recall). Repeating the exercise brings more and more, which rearrange themselves on the screen as your interest goes from one sort of video to another.

This seems like a pretty neat way to suggest more stuff to watch, just in case your day is so long you can keep watching more and more little movies.

Right now, though, I've committed my next half hour to listening to a 1967 radio documentary by Glenn Gould, "The Search for Pet Clark." I've had it on while typing, but I've been unable to pay enough attention to it, and I'm going to start it over as soon as I post this. Five, four, three...
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