No, I think you're right, and it's true for me here in America too. The way I've worded it in recent years is that when I was young it seemed winter was cold straight through and there was a lot of snow that sometimes stuck around for weeks, but in recent years winter seems to consist of brief cold periods (usually just a few days) followed by very mild ones, and any snow doesn't last more than a few days before it's gone. Overall I think I like the new winters much better. I can take any level of cold if it's only going to last 3 or maybe 4 days at the most.
When we moved to Ohio my wife bought me a snowblower; she had this image in her mind of me having a heart attack shoveling the driveway. We haven’t had a decent snow since, and that was over ten years ago. We get snow. We’ll get 3 or 4 inches, but then 3 or 4 days later it’s 60°, and it all melts away.
"One Christmas was so much like the other, in those years around the sea-town corner now, out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve, or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six." Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales It didn't snow at all when I was six or twelve. I lived in south Texas within yoo-hoo distance of Mexico. My husband, on the other hand, lived where he could wave at folks in Canada over six and eight foot drifts of snow that lasted all winter. We compromised on living in a place that seems dramatically wintery to me while he moved here for the mild weather. Perspective is everything.
I used to be able to drive to snow in the winter from shirtsleeve climate in an hour or two. Now it's often three or more. Last time is snowed in my town at 12oo meter elevation was 1985 or so. up until then it had been every ten or so years. I grew in in the California desert about a hundred or so miles northeast of LA. It snowed once every fifteen years or so. When I was twelve is snowed six inches and they had to close the schools. Most years we had a "snow day," which meant we piled in the family car and drove fifty miles to play in the snow on Big Bear Mountain.
According to The Sun UK, you have three days to get your affairs in order, then you’re screwed. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16784442/snow-hit-days-arctic-plunge-brings-freezing-temps/
Among the overused words I am sick of: unpack. As in: We've got a lot of emotional baggage to unpack here.
Now that I live in a decent flat, one that is capable of keeping me warm if needs be, I’d like to see the proper winters of my childhood again.
I have one. Unprecedented. It’s a politician favourite, used whenever they’re trying to stress magnitude. It crops up every time COVID is being discussed!
You can rent the country of Liechtenstein for $70,000 a night. https://www.visit50.com/rent-liechtenstein/
Not bad for catering and accommodations for 150. Not getting that good a rate in Manhattan... not with parades, fireworks, and law enforcement discretion. The latter has potential.
Cannery Row, made famous by Steinbeck, was once the largest producer of canned sardines in the country. It is situated on the broad Monterey bay. The bay is largely open to the Pacific. In Steinbeck's time the floor of the bay was a lush kelp forest that teemed with life. It provided a food source that drew sardines in the billions. One important species was the California Sea Otter. Erroneously believing the otters were completion for the fishery resulted in them being hunted nearly to extinction. The otters did eat an occasional sardine, but they ate other things, including sea urchins. Sea urchins feed on kelp. In a balanced ecosystem this helps keep the forest healthy. With the removal of a major predator like the otters, the population of urchins exploded, and they devoured the forest. By the start of the second world war the fishery had collapsed. It now draws tourists, and has gentrified immensely since Steinbeck's time.
02:32 - I think this must be one of the first times I’ve seen the other side of midnight since landing my job 30 months ago. I do resent the way work gets in the way of my general slobbing.
The U.S. city of Carmel, Indiana (population: 102,000) has 140 roundabouts, "with over a dozen still to come," No American city has more.
I went to a company Christmas party where one woman had sweater like that, but the carrots were higher.
Does anyone else have a list of films that must be watched in the afternoon, and another list that are only for evening viewing? There’s no rhyme or reason I can think of, why I categorise them so, but it just feels ‘off’ to watch an afternoon film at night and vice versa. For example, the LotR films are strictly for the afternoon, as are the Back to the Future films. But conversely I’d never choose to watch, for instance, a Mission Impossible film at any time other than the evening.
They were also the headquarters of ITT 'Educational' Services (air quotes added by me) who ceased operation in 2016 after being defunded by VA and FAFSA for poor student outcomes, and high student loan default rates. Go figure.
It struck me this morning as a curious fact that, when I go back to University next year, many of my fellow students were not even born when I dropped out. 19 years ago. And I was a mature student then! Time flies.
Lions and hyenas hate each other so much that if a hyena is chowing on a dead elephant carcass and sees a pride of lions approach, it'll bury itself into the corpse, hide, and hope the lions won't find it and break its neck.
So, as I’ve always suspected, hyenas are very much the scroats [1] of the animal world. Fortunately for the lions, they don’t get arrested for giving the hyenas a good kicking. [1] UK youth, typically dressed in tracksuit bottoms (tucked into their socks), and black bubble coat (always with the hood up), that like to hang around town centres, shove fireworks through letterboxes and set fire to wheely bins.
