Its a nice day by seasonal standards at 54 N. latitude, provided you are wearing longjohns, good boots and mitts. I like winter; tried living on Vancouver Island for a few years, I find rain is gloomy and makes my bones ache and gives me colds and flu. It's minus 8 Celsius, no wind, and less than a week from the shortest day of the year. That will be about 7 hours of daylight from sunrise to set, then it starts creeping back up.
My dog is pretty much deaf. He likes to announce his mighty presence with a few barks, but he cant really hear himself, so often they come out as feeble 'Yoop, Yerp' barks. I wonder if he ever made fun of old dogs who were too deaf to hear themselves. He's on the flipside of that now. He can see reasonably well, but I detect the sheen of cataracts forming, and his nose works as well as ever, if his ability to detect meat products, especially bacon or ham, is any indication.
I have taken on a small part time job to supplement my EI this winter layoff, but they shorted me a week today, I am sure its an accident. I was punching 2 timecards for small hours on 2 diff projects, I think payroll missed one. Nevertheless, I was looking forward to paying more bills with the additional 100 dollar bounty. Times are tight in the ol homestead, even though my gal's only luxuries are a daily Coke and a monthly pedi, and mine is cheap beer. Quit smoking after 40 years as a daily puffer, almost 9 weeks clean, so at least I'm not purchasing cancer of the lungs as a luxury any more. My liver gets a bit angry with me when I exceed my beer ration, but I take lecithin from time to time, helps flush it out.
Got a big ol ham on sale last week, cooked it yesterday to perfection, and looking forward to making pea soup with the bone when the meat is all sliced off, then after the bone has simmered for a couple days, the dog gets it. Nothing wasted.
Not buying Xmas gifts directly, but will be purchasing packs of cheap socks in bundles of 5 or 6 pairs and sending them to shelters. People often buy obligatory presents, little 10 dollar doodads, for people who dont need or want them. I will be buying for people who do need socks, and feeling less foolish and hypocritical as a result.
Many of my Feckbook friends are concerned eco-folks, and I salute their concerns, but it gets a bit silly at times. I care more about drunk or crazy humans freezing to death than neurotic monkeys in the Philippines committing suicide due to the stress of tourism. I suspect there are too many monkeys, and there may be a few going nuts.
The greatest problems this ol planet faces are still overconsumption in the First world, and overpopulation in the Third. If you have to buy anything, buy used, buy local, buy something that will last and not need replacing. Alternate choice to socks for poor and crazy folks would be mosquito nets for the tropics.
Happy Solstice next week, stop by for pea soup.
No comments:
Post a Comment