Monthly Archives: January 2019

Saga of the “What If’s..”

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giphy.gifI was laying in bed last night, just before going to sleep, and the temperature outside was a balmy -6°F when it hit me.  What if we had a fire in the house right now?  It’s not an impossibility.  The house is over 170 years old.  Having gone down to the basement, there are indications of a previous fire in the neighborhood of the living room fireplace, so in the past history of the house, there was some sort of disaster, or at least some timbers were heavily singed.  Since we don’t know the history of the house really past the 1870s (that’s as far as the title search went) we’re forced to speculate a little bit about the ‘what if’s’ that occurred back then.

But again, what if there was a fire in the house?  Would we get out in time?  How many of our possessions would be salvageable?  Moreover, would we be able to catch the cat to save his little furry butt as well?  Naturally there are pressing issues about scene items, like my flogger collection, and other BDSM toys, how much of them would be destroyed, lost to water damage, smoke and so on.  One of our wedding presents was a flogger made by an artisan who’s no longer crafting her wares.  Matter of fact, one can’t hardly find a reference to her work anymore on the web, but go back 25-30 years ago, and she was a highly respected and sought after craftsperson.  Weird sometimes how that happens.  Lost to the whims of history, even in BDSM lore.

I started this post a week ago, but am finishing it up now, fyi.  A couple of days ago as I was thinking about the scenario that began this post, I thought about buying a safe for my more valuable and less ably replaceable scene items (along with some other necessities, like insurance papers, birth and marriage certificates, as well as other important documents and valuables).  We do have a small safe that my FIL owned, but it’s been in storage for the past 20 years, and it actually weighs about 200 lbs (~91 kgs).  Too, I don’t believe we ever ascertained or found the combination, so at present the safe door is open, so we don’t have to pay a locksmith to open the damn thing.  Consequently, that wouldn’t do very well anyway.  Too small.  I went to a safe website, and looked for possible options and hit upon a possible solution, a ‘gun safe’, one that would be used to protect one’s firearms as well as other valuables.  The only problem (besides price) would be the one I would probably want weighs in excess of 800 lbs (~363 kgs).  The likelihood of something of that nature would be it would end up in the basement, since it would probably crash through the floor of whatever room we wanted to put it in.

So that scenario isn’t a likely solution.  Just another in a long line of musings I’ve had over the years.  Actually, the other ‘what if’ thought I’ve had is, who’s going to inherit my toy collection after I’m gone?  Yeesh.  Gotta quit being morbid.

 

Polar Vortex

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I suppose there are going to be a myriad of things written about the cold snap currently being experienced here in the USA & Canada. Fine. Let me add to the cacophony.

I had today off from work. Fortunately. Like many, I work fulltime, 40 hours a week, which translates to 5 days on, 2 off. It’s an old adage, “in retail, there are no weekends off.” Basically true. Weekends and holidays are heavily shopped days, so people have to be served. So it’s been for the last 33 years. One gets used to it after awhile.

Anyway, not the point of this. When I was growing up, a cold snap, or period of extreme cold temperatures wasn’t treated like the end of the world. It was cold outside, you wore an extra layer, bundled up a bit, no big deal. Nowadays, it’s treated like the end of civilization. A veritable catastrophe. Sensationalized, if you will. Anything to sell more newspapers I suppose is the best way to describe it.

Sure, it’s being felt in different areas that don’t normally get teens or even single digit temperatures. But it does happen, it’s happened before and will again. Global warming is palatable, as well as not necessarily fantasized. A thousand scientists aren’t wrong, things are different and have been getting different for many years now.

In the area where I live presently, usually around February is when we get the “bone-chilling” temperatures. I can recall several mornings coming out of work to see the digital temperature on the bank clock saying -15F or -17F (-26, -27C). Only once did it cause a major problem, the battery died on my 1987 Bronco II. Who could blame it? Now, when the mercury dips below 0°, the schools might very well close. Seriously? Back in the 1970s, your mother gave you a scarf. That’s what it’s for!

Maybe we’ve all gotten soft.

Cranking up for Snowmageddon 2019

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A day or so ago I was hearing from several of my co-workers about a possible snowstorm that might be coming this way this weekend.  There were rumors about the possibility of a foot or more of the white stuff that might be coming down.  Naturally, for most of them, it was a cause for concern, but for me it was quite the opposite.  My personal reaction to hearing we might be getting significant snowfall was ‘About Damn Time!’

I’ve always been one that liked a lot of snow. Even when I was little, I loved to watch the snow come down, knowing that the next day (or later that same day) I would be able to play in it.  Snowball fights, snow forts, being able to get swathed in my snowsuit, with the mittens attached to the cuffs by clips, playing in the yard with my brother and the neighbor kids for hours.  Sledding, tobogganing, building, destroying, fighting (not the ‘knock down drag out’ variety) and just generally having a good time as kids are supposed to.

Now that I’m older, well the desire is still there, just in a different manner.  I have a ‘toy’ that I ‘play’ with, called a snowblower.  It’s almost 30 years old, and it’s undergone a couple of refits, but it still works just fine.  A bit rusty, I remember purchasing it from the local AGWAY store near where I grew up, because there was a big snowstorm coming, and I wasn’t able to manhandle the large Graveley tractor that my Dad used to use.  His Alzheimer’s was in full swing at the time, and he wasn’t able to help me with the configuration of attaching the large 48″ snowblower to the front of the tractor.  So I went to the AGWAY and bought a floor model snowblower, and asked if it was possible for them to deliver it that day.  As I recall they were amenable to the prospect, and later that afternoon, just before the snow started falling, the truck arrived and they dropped it in my driveway.  I muscled it up and into the garage and was able to test it out the next morning.  Worked like a champ.  So much so that I never used the older, bigger snowblower again.  Even so, were I able to, I would have taken Dad’s Graveley with me.  But the people who bought my parent’s house wanted the tractor, so it went with the house as it was sold.  Visiting the property in 2016, I noted the tractor was long gone from the garage.  The owner’s Mercedes sedan was in the bay where the old station wagon used to sit, but it appeared there had been no yard equipment in the garage for some time.

Hmm…getting back to the topic at hand.  Getting ready for the impending snowstorm.  I went shopping today for some of the items I figured we needed, filled the Edge with gas and filled my 5 gallon can with gas to make sure the snow blower was good to go.  Between Saturday and Sunday, if the storm holds the right track, we might end up with about 20 or more inches of snow.

Fingers crossed it works out that way!!

Happy Anniversary, girl.

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It’s been a year since we decided to switch things up. With you taking the bottom role and I being your Top.

We did manage to meet once, back in June. We’d planned for more meetings, but money and life got in the way.

It’s been an interesting journey so far.  I think you can agree to that.  Ups, downs, ins and outs.  We’re working towards our goals, and we’re doing it together.

Happy Anniversary.  1 year down, many more to go.

Doldrums

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Doldrums (n.) – a state or period of inactivity, stagnation, or depression.

January is a generally a month where one regroups after the hectic ‘go-go-go’ of the Thanksgiving/Christmas season.  It’s a New Year, but it’s also a time where things slow down considerably, before ramping up towards the holidays of Valentine’s Day, and then Easter.  I’ve always equated it to the term above, remembering about when I learned of the other definition of the word.  IE: an equatorial region of the Atlantic Ocean with calms, sudden storms, and light unpredictable winds.

It’s more of the ‘light unpredictable winds’ I’m referring to than anything else.  How to keep yourself motivated, when everything around you is stagnant.  It’s a difficult time of year to create change, like many people attempt to do, with their resolutions of this, that and the other thing.  Generally, I’ve given up on making New Year resolutions, because it ends up being a wasted effort, since the desire to ‘change’ doesn’t tend to stay in the forefront of my brain for more than a couple of weeks, at best.

Change is difficult under any circumstances, to be sure. But forcing the issue on yourself doesn’t make it any easier.  Things like weight loss, like quitting drinking, or smoking, or some other habit has to be done when you desire to do it, not on some schedule, either self-imposed, or due to peer pressure.  The argument ‘Well, everyone else is doing it‘ doesn’t work any better as you get older, than it did when you were younger.  The old argument ‘if everyone else jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you as well?‘ definitely applies.

Here we are, 2019.  Hopefully it will be a good year.  There’s always that possibility.  Time will tell, of course.  Should be interesting if nothing else.

Cheers.