So we're about to get hit with a major winter storm

and I do mean major, followed by frigid temperatures. I mean, it's just now starting to snow, and it's 13 degrees now, but that's rather balmy compared to what it will be. Here are the alerts in effect for Lexington at the moment:

Weather Alerts- Lexington, Kentucky

Winter Storm Warning Until Mon 7:00 am EST

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Action Recommended:  Make preparations per the instructions\

Issued By Louisville - KY, US, National Weather Service

Affected Area Portions of south central Indiana and east central, north central, northwest, and south central Kentucky

Description ...WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 AM EST /6 AM CST/ MONDAY...

WHAT...Heavy snow mixed with sleet and freezing rain along and south of the Bluegrass and Western Kentucky Parkways. South of the Parkways, storm total snow and sleet of 4 to 8 inches with total ice amounts up to three quarters of an inch. Localized areas may see total ice over three quarters of an inch. Across southern Indiana and north central Kentucky, mainly snow, heavy at times. Total snow accumulations between 10 and 15 inches. Localized higher amounts of snow and sleet possible.

WHERE...Portions of south central Indiana and east central, north central, northwest, and south central Kentucky.

WHEN...Until 7 AM EST /6 AM CST/ Monday.

IMPACTS...Expect power outages and tree damage due to the ice. Travel could be impossible.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... If you must travel, keep an extra flashlight, food, and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency. In Indiana, for Indiana Road Conditions please visit http://511in.org In Kentucky, for Kentucky Road Conditions please visit http://goky.ky.gov

 

Cold Weather Advisory From Mon 12:00 am until Tue 11:00 am EST

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Action Recommended Make preparations per the instructions

Issued By Louisville - KY, US, National Weather Service 

Affected Area Portions of south central Indiana and east central, north central, northwest, and south central Kentucky

Description ...COLD WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT EST /11 PM CST/ SUNDAY NIGHT TO 11 AM EST /10 AM CST/ TUESDAY...

WHAT...Very cold wind chills as low as 15 below zero expectedW

HERE...Portions of south central Indiana and east central, north central, northwest, and south central Kentucky. 

WHEN...From midnight EST /11 PM CST/ Sunday Night to 11 AM EST /10 AM CST/ Tuesday.

IMPACTS...The dangerously cold wind chills as low as 15 below zero could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 30 minutes. 

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Use caution while traveling outside. Wear appropriate clothing, a hat, and gloves. Make frequent checks on older family, friends, neighbors, and pets. Ensure portable heaters are used correctly. Do not use generators or grills inside. 

 

Well, it never hurts to be prepared, especially if you have major anxiety issues that can only be helped with obsessive steps. I have charged my large car-battery-sized power bank (the one that can be charged either through AC current, via car adapter, or solar (that one I don't have an adapter for, but cool and that runs my CPAP for several hours a night, and I have the CPAP adapter at the ready. I have also charged every electronic device that takes one in the house. I have made sure that all five flashlights either have batteries or are charged. The crank one is in the car in case it is needed there. It also has a radio. I found the 20 LED tealights and 20 regular tealights to put in our many hoarded jars for light, as well as my five normal scented candles, plus at least two he's borrowed from me. I found a cache of matches and bought two lighting wands in addition to mine, as mine is low on fuel. He also has a few boxes of the wooden matches. The car has half a tank of gas for charging the power bank and keeping any vapour lock from happening, but not a full tank because the power steering is having issues, and I think it'll need to be fixed soon, and I may have to switch to the bus anyway after I can get out on my own. My wipers are up. I have deicer and WD-40 for thawing locks and doors, and they are in the utility room with an extra scraper/brush. I have done everything I can think of to prepare. I managed to get all of our foodstuffs except yellow onions, which I thought were pretty good. I was on the waiting list (#!0) for a service that takes healthcare workers to work in severe weather, but I've been assigned a driver, so I think I've been bumped up. I'm going to check. That'll help on Monday. It occurs to me that I did not request a ride home yet(!). Here's hoping we all get through the storm okay. 

PS I just put in my request for a ride home...it's pending. Hopefully it's not too late.

Do not taunt the tech gods

The other night, during the Great Verizon Crash, T-Mobile sent a text that had everything in it but nyah, nyah. nyah, nyah. The snark is great in this one. Considering I hadn't had any issues, and it was already this late, I would have thought this obvious. That being said, I've only had two outages in the 20+ years I've been with T-Mobile and one case of delayed texts. I'm not particularly happy about recent events (Starlink partnership (aka Elon Musk) and the monetary support of the ballroom, the latter basically to push through a fibre merger with the FCC), but overall I've had nothing but a great experience with them. I have my phone, watch line, and internet with them (the non-fibre kind, which uses their mobile network through a gateway). Had the ballroom thing come up sooner, I might have considered changing, as I'd had my devices paid for some months, but I'd just upgraded my phone and I've got almost two years of credits (it was taxes + activation fee only, I didn't have to actually 'pay' the price of the phone itself, and I can't shell out $1199, even for principle--it was the only way I could upgrade, and my phone was over four years old and was going to lose support fairly soon.)

Anyway, it can happen to any network at any time. Cut back the snark, lest ye be struck by the cell phone gods. They abhor hubris as do all such beings.

Favourite books

These are some of mine

• Picture Book: Curious George by H.A. Rey and Margret Rey
• Children's Book: The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams 
• Young Adult Book: The Grey King (Dark of Rising Sequence # 4) by Susan Cooper 
• Mystery: The Last Camel Died at Noon (Amelia Peabody Mysteries # 6) by Elizabeth Peters (Barbara Mertz) 
• Fantasy: The White Dragon (Dragonriders of Pern #3) by Anne McCaffery 
• Science Fiction: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 
• Classical Literature: Timaeus by Plato
• Late Antiquity Classics: Meditations  by Marcus Aurelius
• Mediaeval Classics: Consolation of Philosophy by Boëthius
• Renaissance/Early Modern Classics: Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
• Regency/Victorian/Edwardian Classics: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Modern Classics: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Play: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare 
• Novella: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 
• Short Story: 'The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson 
• Non-Fiction: (I can't choose!) Most recent was probably The Art of Living by Thích Nhất Hạnh 
• Comic: Sandman by Neil Gaiman
• Graphic Novels: Maus I and II by Art Spiegelman
• Most Recent Book I Read: Camouflage: The Hidden Lives of Autistic Women by Sarah Bargiela

This!

This graphic is nice, but please follow thelink to the post that accompanied it on Facebook, especially if you really want to understand me at all. This describes my reasons for what I do daily spot on. I never recognised autism in myself until a friend was reading an article about Asperger's (not a thing in the DSM-V, but still), to understand a friend of ours better, and then he started to realise they applied to me, right down to trouble with proprioception and motion issues. He had me read it, asking me to keep an open mind, and I realised it, too. That's when I sought assessment, which was really hard in our area as an adult--it took a year to even find someone here. EKU had a five-year waiting list! But I was finally diagnosed, and I'm going forward with finding support and figuring out how it affects my life, what was missing all those years, and what can help now. I do wish I hadn't been missed for 57 years. It would have made such a difference. I wouldn't have spent all that effort and thought I was messing up for no good reason, when I was supposed to be 'gifted and talented'. I wouldn't have spent all those years spending such an effort masking that I actually lost myself for a long time and built up a huge amount of anxiety. But I'm hoping now that I can release some of the anxiety because I know the underlying issue finally.

#1 for 2026

Camouflage: The Hidden Lives of Autistic Women by Sarah Bargiela, illustrated by Sophie Standing. Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.

This is an introduction to autism presentation in women in graphic novel format, aimed at young adults aged 11-18, so it was a quick read as I was making coffee this morning. I found it informative, but I especially found the bits about how autistic women are often the victims of abuse in relationships because they fail to form a network of female friends in their adolescence to help them navigate dating and sexual relations. This is my experience. In her book, Sarah Bargiels described how they were forced to learn to be assertive on their own and how it finally empowered them. I never did. I got stuck, so I just shut down in this area and stopped dating. I divorced in 1991 and stopped dating about 1994. Period. It wasn't worth it, I told myself. Maybe this diagnosis will change this--I don't know.  But it could, now that I know what's going on, it's definitely a part of my life I should talk with my therapist about.