Whew!

It’s been a weird day. I mostly did some things around the house, ate, and played a bubble shooter game on my phone without much success of getting through level 23 (it’s based off of Disney Pixar’s movie Inside Out). A had called me earlier today and explained that the snow ploughs had not made it to his street but that he was about to go out and do some shoveling. I asked him to give me an update later. About 2 pm he called and said the plough had been through, everything looked good, and he’d shoveled the walks and driveway for me. They were almost out of coffee, and we’re getting temperatures around 0 degrees tonight and tomorrow morning, so I figured conditions would just worsen, so I went out and spent a half-hour digging out my car with a broom and a dustpan. Yes, really. I do need to invest in a snow shovel, after never needing any for years. But last year we had over 10 inches in each of two storms two weeks apart, and this time, while the official measure was over 9 inches, A and I each have about 10 or 11, as our parts of town got more snow. Add the drifting from the wind and it could go up to three feet in places.

After digging out where I could (and I’m counting that as exercise for my Habitica application), and only falling down once into a drift onto my butt, I managed to get out of my parking place, and then there was a moving truck taking up most of the space near the curve to the exit from the parking lot, so I had to go through the snowier area. I got stuck on my street, which never gets ploughed as far as I can tell, but shifting into reverse and then into first and second gear (which I’ve never done using an automatic) and got out and down the road. The next street and the one after that wasn’t bad, just narrower. Once I got to Man O’War, things were just wet, except for slush where people pulled out of other streets here and there. None of the right turn lanes had been ploughed, though, so we were having to turn from the right straight lane instead. I went down Man O’War and then another road that I knew was a snow route just to be okay, not the normal back way I go. Then I got to their street, which was pretty decent, and into the driveway. A and I went and got a few groceries for each of us, stopped by Jin Jin and got Chinese food, and then I headed home, as I wanted to get back by dark and the sun was already low on the horizon. I got home shortly before 6 pm, managed to make it back into the very same parking place I’d been in, after negotiating my street again.

I came in and one of my floor lamps (the newest, which I got three years ago), was leaning awfully badly, so I tried fiddling with it, and it totally came apart and broke, much to my frustration. I decided to walk away from the lamp and eat my kung pao tofu and spring rolls and calm down a bit. When I went back it was obvious that it was broken and not merely unscrewed, and that it was designed somewhat poorly. I salvaged the heavy glass shades off of the torchiere piece and the two reading lamps, and I’ll get rid of the rest when I take things to the dumpster, then look for another one that is similar. It means the living room is a bit dark, having only the original floor lamp over by the computer, and nothing will come on when I flip the switch next to the door, but I’ll eventually get another, maybe when I get my tax refund and have a little money to spend. Who am I kidding, that will all go to bills, I’m sure. :)

So now that I have released the lamp to the Great Beyond and I’ve eaten, I feel better. There are plenty of things to do tonight, but my back and neck are hurting somewhat from wrestling with the lamp (the base was very heavy, and the whole thing was nestled in a spot in the corner behind the couch, which reclined while I was trying to line up the base with the pole and screw it back together. I probably needed two people to even get as far as I could, but in the end, the screw would not pop up to where the pole could be screwed in, and plastic parts, beyond the metal pieces that were giving me fits, just crumbled, especially up in the light. Fortunately I didn’t break any of the shades (I did break one once before when the lamp fell over, and had to replace the two small shades with something similar). In retrospect, the lamp has never truly been completely vertical at 90 degrees to the floor since then, so it probably was on its way out for some time and I managed to keep it going for awhile by leaning it against the wall and putting it between other objects. Oh, well.

To be honest, I think I’m going to lie down for just a little while and then maybe watch something on DVD. Or read. I don’t know yet. I did do a little reading last night, but the book was terrible in terms of grammar so I returned it. It purported to be a history of Rome, but it was very cursory at best, treating the entire period from the founding of Rome to Augustus Caesar in few pages, and I had doubts of it getting any better. Plus, it focussed on battles rather than much of (in my opinion) the more interesting history of Rome, the social and political aspects. Anyway, considering I’ve taken graduate classes where I had to learn the history of the Republic and the Empire pretty thoroughly, this seemed inadequate, more like a listing of kings and emperors. I already had to memorise the entire list of Roman Emperors, I don’t need another listing. What I wanted was a nice overview to jog my memories on certain aspects of Roman history, and was disappointed. The download included another book on the history of Aegypt and one on the history of Greece, but I decided to not even try those.

Okay, the bedroom and perhaps getting comfy with a book (or a Kindle) is calling me. Oh, and probably I’ll just fall asleep for awhile anyway. :)