That story about the newly-arrived-from-Australia store manager who
laid on barbecue equpment for the Christmas sale is obviously made
from the purest whole cloth, but you really could enjoy a barbecue
here today.

True,it's overcast, but it's cloudy-bright, not gloomy like yesterday.
I was surprised, when I went out for the mail long after sunset, to
find the twilight much brighter than usual. I suppose high clouds
were still intercepting some sunlight.

We're being traditional: I'm staying inside tomorrow and baking a
game hen. I think I'll split it down the spine and drape it over a
mound of dressing, and cover the breast with bacon to keep it from
drying out.

I could put freshly-picked thyme,oregano, marjoram,and parsley into
the dressing if I wanted to.

I have winter-onion scallions, but they are too strong to serve raw.
Also a lot of trouble to clean, and very wasteful since only the
innermost sprout is good to eat. But I have several unwanted clumps.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

Joy Beeson <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
> That story about the newly-arrived-from-Australia store manager who
> laid on barbecue equpment for the Christmas sale is obviously made
> from the purest whole cloth, but you really could enjoy a barbecue
> here today.

I love global warming. It's not exactly warm here, but it is well
above freezing, with no wind. We've had no snow so far. It rained
this morning, but the rain ended by 9:30 am, after which I walked to
my storage unit, where most of my books and other property has been
since I moved into a much smaller space four months ago. It's in
Merrifield, close to where I lived for the past nine years, but about
a 45-minute walk from my home in Vienna.

I'm not treating it as place to inaccessibly store my stuff until I
can move into a larger space. I no longer think such a time will ever
come. Instead, I'm treating it as a place to accessibly store my
stuff for the rest of my life, or until they raise their rates enough
that it becomes unaffordable. By "accessible" I mean both that I can
get to it by foot and that I can quickly find and remove whatever of
my stuff I want. (Storage units that I've helped friends with were
often packed so tightly that almost nothing could be reached without
removing lots of other stuff first, and even then were hidden in one
of hundreds of identical unmarked boxes.)

I make two other uses of it: First, I keep a copy of all my files,
including all emails I've ever sent or received (back to 1974!), and
all Usenet posts I've sent or saved. Both are well into the millions
of messages. Second, it's located in the middle of Merrifield, near
lots of stores I like to shop at, including Aldi, CVS, Dollar Tree,
H-Mart, Home Depot, Lidl, Mom's Organic Market, and Target. In order
to shop at more than one such store per trip, to be able to buy more
in each store than I can comfortably carry home (to cut down on time
spent waiting in checkout lines and to stock up when stuff I want is
on sale), and to avoid carrying stuff bought in one store into another
store (lest I be falsely accused of shoplifting), I use the storage
unit as a place to stash my purchases.

This morning, I didn't do any shopping. (The day before Christmas
is a bad time for that due to crowds). Instead I went only to the
storage unit. I dropped off my latest thumb-drive backup, and picked
up non-perishable groceries I had left there during a shopping trip a
week earlier.

Last week, when I dropped off those groceries, I located and retrieved
the three of my books that are about Mormonism. My brother may be
moving to Salt Lake City next year, so I put them under the tree for
him to unwrap tomorrow. I also brought back something I discovered
when reaching into my bag of disposable plastic grocery bags, to get a
bag to take the books home in. (I've been saving such bags for years,
since I suspected that either a bag ban or bag tax was soon coming.
There's currently a bag tax.) Anyhow, I discovered a can of mixed
nuts. Apparently I somehow mistook a bag containing that can for an
empty bag years ago. The can expired in 2017. But I hate to waste
food, especially with current grocery prices. The can isn't corroded
or bulging. I plan to open it, and if the nuts smell and look okay,
I'll taste them, and if they taste okay, I'll eat them. So if you
never hear from me again, you'll know that that I chose poorly.

As for the brighter evening twilight, note that sunsets have been
getting later since December 7th (at least at my latitude), and are
doing so at an ever-increasing rate. Unfortunately, sunrises have
been getting later too, albeit at an ever-decreasing rate, and will
continue to do so until about January 7th. The longest night of
the year was about halfway between these dates, on the night of
December 21st.

And that, of course, is the true meaning of the season, and has been
since long before it was called Christmas, Yuletide, Sol Invictus,
Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Festivus.

I'm hoping that with future technology we will circularize Earth's and
the moon's orbits, un-tilt Earth's axis, and adjust orbital distances
such that years are exactly 360 days and lunar months are exactly
30 days.

Getting back to waiting in lines, the Merrifield Target has 24
checkout lines, but I have no idea why. No more than a quarter
of them have ever been open at once, no matter how many customers
were trying to check out.

My storage unit is in a very large building, large enough to see from
space. I was alone there today, not for the first time. I didn't
traverse the whole place, but it's built on the Scottish Plan (that's
a Worldcon '99 joke) with chicken-wire ceilings and a very high
metal roof, and all the walls and doors are metal and all the floors
concrete, so the slightest noise can be heard everywhere in the
building. I didn't hear anything. So I was definitely alone, unless
someone was sleeping in their unit and not snoring, nor rolling over
in bed, nor rustling their sheets, nor farting.

It's probably the largest building I've ever been alone in. What's
the largest building you've ever been alone in? (I'm asking everyone
here, not just Joy.)

> I have winter-onion scallions, but they are too strong to serve raw.
> Also a lot of trouble to clean, and very wasteful since only the
> innermost sprout is good to eat. But I have several unwanted clumps.

There's a black walnut tree in my brother's yard. This was another
mast year, generating more nuts in a month than I could eat in a year.
But I didn't save any, as it's a lot of work to open the thick shells
to get to the tiny nuts inside. Also, the shells are coated with
black goo (hence the name) which gets everything dirty and is almost
impossible to wash off.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

Keith F. Lynch <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> I love global warming. It's not exactly warm here, but it is well
> above freezing, with no wind.

On Christmas Day it got up to 57 F (14 C).

> We've had no snow so far.

Corection: I had forgotten we got a small amount of snow on the
morning of December 11th. Only on vegetation, not on roads,
sidewalks, or drivways. And it all melted that afternoon.

It rained all day today, and is expected to rain all day tomorrow.
But the temperature may reach 60 F (16 C) tomorrow or the day after.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.