Tag Archives: winter

Windy Winter Morn   (2016Dec15)

Posted by XperDunn on

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Thursday, December 15, 2016                                         10:45 AM

This is one of those bitterly cold and gusty mornings that make one appreciate the genius of a house. A really strong wind can make me worry for the integrity of the walls—nature, when sufficiently excited, can make anything man-made seem as flimsy as cardboard. But while the walls continue to stand, a house is a wonder—to stand, safe and warm, and look out upon a world of windy winter, as if watching a movie, is a treat. Before the ubiquity of glass windows and insulation, furnaces and fridges—what an uncomfortable world it must have been.

In cold weather I often remember a snapshot of my teens—I was hitchhiking home from Boston in Winter. There was snow on the ground, there was fresh snow falling, the sun was setting, and I was standing in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles from anyone I knew. I was hitchhiking on an on-ramp which no one was taking—basically standing in a snowstorm, underdressed to where even my teenage metabolism was losing the fight with entropy.

It was the first time I became fully aware of the importance of all the stuff in our lives—when a man stands in solitude, with empty hands, before Mother Nature—she licks her lips. I could catch a ride, or—I could freeze to death, covered by falling snow and unnoticed until spring. There was no diner nearby to duck into; I had no friends within walking distance to go visit and use their phone; I had no money and I had no plan. I learned that there are places that are easy to get to, but hard to leave.

I assume someone picked me up, since I am typing this today—but the memory of that experience doesn’t contain the happy, last-minute ending. My memory is of being eternally trapped in an empty winter landscape with no hope of survival. It was an iconic moment for me. One cannot fully appreciate the grandeur of Mother Nature—until she casually tries to kill you.

The Fool card in the Tarot depicts a young man, much as I was then, walking along with his eyes on the stars and one foot over a precipice. The folly of youth, the lack of foresight, is so much a part of humanity that it finds representation in the Tarot—and no one knows how old the Tarot really is. If I were re-designing a modern version of the deck, I’d illustrate the Fool card with a drawing of a kid hitchhiking in a snowstorm.

But the moment was also a lesson. I plan my trips carefully now (not that I take any, really, not anymore). I keep extra stuff in my car (well, I don’t have my own car anymore). At sixty, I’ve learned to be very careful when leaving the house—but I also rarely leave the house—not by choice, that’s just the way things go—but still, it’s ironic. Kinda.

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Storm Comin’   (2016Jan23)

Posted by XperDunn on

Saturday, January 23, 2016                                               12:20 AM

Friday morning we woke to a cold house and a broken furnace. This was not supposed to happen—there was no storm to knock out our power (yet) and we moved our fuel tank from underground into our cellar a few years back, so the fuel is supposed to be free of impurities that once sometimes clogged the filter—impurities that come from having an old fuel tank buried and rusting in the yard—mostly water condensation, with a touch of rust flakes. We were understandably disappointed that the winter cold had found yet another way to come at us, after we thought we had come to know what to expect. A spring in the fuel pump had broken, or so the repairman said, and it was repaired later in the day.

Now we’re expecting an historic storm tomorrow, just as we have recovered from a very shivery morning—these are incredible inconvenient and uncomfortable things—the loss of heat, and now the prospect of a power outage—but they do give a person perspective. Politics and personal demons seem to fade away in the face of possible exposure in one’s own home—I understand there are already tens of thousands of people down south who have lost power from the storm that is expected to show up here tomorrow—and two people have already died in what I heard described today as “all of winter in a single storm”.

We’ve almost become used to terrible storms in recent years—people are aware that the temporary inconvenience of a big snowfall, while serious, may be less dangerous than the high winds and potential coastal flooding that are also forecast this weekend. It’s a bad time for a lunar high tide—those on the coast have more reason to fear the winds than the snow. A big storm was forecast last year—and then pooped out in reality—if only this storm will poop out before it causes too many too much hardship. But I’m a pessimist and I expect the worst.

My neighbors all have generators—I don’t know why I persist in doing without one—every winter there’s at least one power outage from storms—usually more than one. Westchester is tree country and while the trees are beautiful, they tend to get weighted by snow or ice, and blown by the wind—with the result that they inevitably bring down a power line, or a few hundred power lines. One year we went three days without power—which meant three days without heat, among other inconveniences—so again, I can’t imagine why I keep putting off getting a generator—I was raised to just live with power outages, but there weren’t a lot of easy-to-use, affordable generators back then—so I guess I’m just an old guy.

For someone who hates getting a chill, I’m a terrible homeowner—I should get modern windows to replace the old sash ones (that are missing their respective storm windows and screens, anyway)—moreover, this house was originally a summer cottage, and I’ve never had it properly insulated—winters here are much more a nightmare than they need to be—and it could all have been avoided if I hadn’t been putting off these simple improvements for decades.

You’d think I’d appreciate the winter, when my inability to get out and about keeps me from braving the terrible road conditions—but the truth is I feel worse in winter when Bear has to go out, when I should be telling her to stay home and let me run errands and shopping trips in the bad weather. That’s what a husband is supposed to do—it’s what I used to do, when I was fit enough. It’s hard to be a hero when you’re old and sick. I hate not being a hero.

One bright spot in all this is that our daughter is warm and safe in sunny California, and well on her way to making me a grampaw sometime this summer. Here’s a picture of her work in progress:

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Melt-Downer   (2015Mar08)

Posted by XperDunn on

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Sunday, March 08, 2015                                  5:14 PM

The snowing-est winter of recent memory sure had its excitements—and while most of them had to do with cold, discomfort, inconvenience, and cancelled work, school, outings, etc., it nevertheless feels a bit boring on this above-freezing, ice-melting day—even for a Sunday. The forecast is to reach into the forties every day this week—no blizzards, no storms—just melting snow and plenty of it. Early spring is like an early pregnancy (from the guy’s POV)—there’s little sign of it other than the knowledge that it’s on its way. In the meantime we just deal with the mess left behind by all of winter’s meteorological excitement.

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I saw a Facebook post about someplace in California that’s closing down its oil pumps to save water during their historic drought. It sounds like symbolism, a bit, but it’s really just the whole world in microcosm—it’s too real to be symbolic. People in the future will no doubt wonder what we did in the years leading up to and immediately following that recent announcement by scientists that we’ve reached the point-of-no-return on greenhouse gasses warming the globe. I’m starting to wonder a little myself. Should I already be long dead from a gun-battle with industrialists? Should I have long since emigrated out of the first-world, just to stop being a part of it all? I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be typing away in my oil-heated home on a machine that requires mining rare-earth elements to manufacture.

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The people that know (scientist-type people) have already determined that we’ve crossed a serious line in our altering of the atmosphere and the oceans. The people that live in fear (leaders and wealthy people) are still furiously insisting that the problem doesn’t exist. They point to the fact that it still snows in winter—case closed. I resent the problem being discussed primarily by old farts—my age or older—who’ll be dead by the time they’re proved wrong.

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Oddly enough, our impending self-destruct is just one of the symptoms of a larger problem. By accepting technology into our lives, we’ve put ourselves in the hands of the technicians. When they say, ‘don’t stick your finger in the light-socket’, we should listen. And we do—when it’s as straight-forward as a zapping from a light-socket. But when it concerns something more complex  or subtle, like an atom-bomb, people just say, “Thanks, scientists.”, and take it away to do with it whatever they wish.

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A technician discovered how to build factories and power stations and cars—and we started making stuff, manufacturing stuff, marketing stuff—we know all there is to know about these inventions because we use them all the time. We don’t need the technicians any more, do we?—especially not if they have some crazy idea that their very convenient inventions have innate problems when used in large numbers. We don’t need to listen to technicians unless they have good news. Our grandchildren will have no such luxury. They’re going to have to listen to the technicians that tell them how to build sea-walls, how to electrify formerly combustion-driven machines, and how to keep breathing in a toxic atmosphere.

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There’s a lot of talk about money being free-speech, about corporations being legal persons—and that’s a problem. But the bigger problem is that capitalism causes us to give money more than free-speech—we give it judgment. People have known since the late sixties that our planet was endangered by technology—but we’ve wrung our hands for fifty years over the fact that ending our pollution would damage our economy. We’ve allowed money to convince us that pollution isn’t important, because the alternative is too expensive, or too inconvenient. Well, take a look at this place in twenty years and then come tell me about expensive and inconvenient.

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Do I sound crabby? I know I do—I don’t know why I asked. I’m in a lot of pain today—and I’m not really sure why. I overdid it a bit yesterday, walking through deep snow until I was gasping for air, my limbs burning from the effort. I was just returning from the house next door—it’s just a few yards—but the snow was up to my waist and there’s an ice layer on top that collapsed only when I stood up on it. It was like climbing giant stairs. It took forever for my breathing to get back to normal—I was exhausted. So maybe that’s it—after all, I haven’t been able to exert myself like that for twenty years—and that sort of thing took a day or two to recover from, even back when I was healthy.

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I’m also tired and a bit let down by my gargantuan post from last week—I spent two days playing piano and four days editing and posting all of it (ten complete videos—1 hour, 20 minutes total listening time). It’s going to be a long time before I record myself at the piano again—it’s a lot of work to post videos, but I don’t notice when I only do one or two of them every other day. If I was Horowitz, I’d gladly embrace the effort, but my little ditties make me wonder why I’m killing myself to share them. I’m starting to hate music as much as it hates me.

Or maybe I’m just tired.

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Bring It On   (2015Feb20)

Posted by XperDunn on

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Friday, February 20, 2015                      9:56 AM

Looking at a possible record for coldest day today, I woke up, went to the kitchen and turned on the oven to 425 with the door open, turned on the plasma TV in the bedroom (plasma TVs act as space-heaters, which helps in winter, but is not so good in summer) and put the space heater on full blast in the foyer. It’s still pretty chilly in here, so I’m sitting at my PC with a scarf and Elmer-Fudd-hat on. The only way to warm my hands is by holding them over the open oven door, but then I’m breathing in the heat coming straight up at my head, so I can’t do it for long.

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Winter takes a lot out of a guy. Whenever I think of spring, I feel an overwhelming weariness at the thought of all the days between now and then, all the hours of chilled bones, stiff muscles, and runny noses. I hung one of those seed bells from a tree branch outside the window yesterday—I’ve been putting it off because it’s been too cold to run outside, but then I thought of how hard it must be for the birds to find food right now, so I forced myself to get out there and do it. I couldn’t tie a good knot with that nylon webbing they come in—I expect it to be on the ground, being gnawed at by squirrels, before the day is out. Even then, the birds will still get the small seeds that the squirrels leave behind, so it’s not a complete waste.

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I wish I could, with a snap of my fingers, hang ten of those things from squirrel-proof wires all around the property and just make our yard a bird’s winter paradise—but all that ladder work is problematical when there’s more than a foot of snow on the ground, so that will remain a fantasy. Tough luck, birds.

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I’m expecting a visitor or two today, but I won’t be surprised if no one shows up. It’s tempting to think of just going back to bed and calling the whole day a wash. Winter always makes me politically incorrect—there’s nothing sounds so good to me right now as ‘global warming’. Warming, did you say? Bring it on!

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Aliens In Winter (2015Jan19)

Posted by XperDunn on

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-Thus endeth the lesson.

So, now I have my video of Joni-Mitchell-song piano-covers, my poem about my winter walk, and here I am, being greedy, trying for an essay to top it all off…

Well, the odds of my getting a good essay, when I haven’t actually been driven to the keyboard by frustration and a head full of roiling thoughts—when I’ve just ‘decided’ to try and squeeze one out of myself—are lower than dirt. So I might as well choose an equally off-the-grid subject, like Ancient Aliens. Nobody takes ancient aliens seriously, so they make a perfect subject for me—although, I should admit, being taken seriously is the last thing I need. I have a hard enough time being taken for a light-headed jester.

Nevertheless, there are many ancient ruins whose construction is ‘unexplainable’. It’s hard for me to accept that word, ‘unexplainable’. ‘Very difficult’ I could manage—even ‘mysterious’ I can handle—but for something to be entirely unexplainable (in my experience) is a poor use of words. In science, there were (and are) many unanswered questions—but we don’t just throw up that word, ‘unexplainable’, and move on—we find explanations. That’s what science is—the refusal to accept ‘unexplainable’ as an answer.

Now, ‘unexplainable’ does have a temporal meaning—even in science, there are many things which are not yet explainable. And if Ancient Alien proponents wish to replace ‘unexplainable’ with ‘not yet explained’, then I’m ready to listen to the rest of what they have to say. Until then, I have to place them in the set of all people who are willing to accept ignorance as an answer, rather than a challenge—and members of that set do not intersect with the set of all people who are rigorously scientific.

And scale, in and of itself, does not constitute any great mystery, to my mind. Huge blocks of stone may seem immovable, laser-guided precision of ancient carvings may seem impossible—lots of things appear at first glance to be outside of our capabilities—or the capacity of our ancestors. But give thousands of people hundreds of years to think and experiment and work things out, and there is very little that we can pronounce to be impossible. Large objects can be floated upon waterways, rolled on wheels or cylinders, or undermined in sand. These and other techniques can also be combined in various ways to enhance their power. In short, to pronounce something to be too big to move is actually just a way of saying that our imaginations have limits—a statement with which I could never agree.

Others questions, such as the visibility of the Nazca Lines diagrams only from the air, seem to me equally judgmental about the cleverness of people. There’s a tremendous gap, to my mind, between something that is very, very hard to do—and something that is impossible to do. Nor do I give credence to the issue of why ancient monuments were built. Without context, even our more modern structures, like cathedrals, have no obvious, practical use. In the particular case of the Ancient Alien question, we see many ruins of structures that have an astronomical connection—but the stars are as important to a farmer, or a sheepherder, as they are to an alien. The circuitous seasons have, for mankind, both a life-or-death meaning for agriculture and a more mystical attraction as a source of contemplation and dreaming—the addition of aliens is superfluous to their import.

Thus, while I’m open to the idea of Ancient Aliens, I’m less than satisfied with the current archive of ‘proof’ that we see on TV. Also, I’m not too crazy about the idea that humanity is nothing more than an experiment in some galactic laboratory run by alien overlords. I’d rather believe in God, if I could.

O–and two more videos:

 

Winter Outside

Posted by XperDunn on

Cold? O yes! The whole Atlantic seaboard region is below zero—and that’s in Fahrenheit, folks. We here in Northern Westchester are right in there, as is NYC, though the urbanites have the standard ten degree boost upward that all big cities generate (in waste heat). Up here in ‘god’s country’ the temperature is closer to the rest of the Hudson Valley, but not quite so cold.

Our snow is middling, less than a foot high—and hasn’t fallen anew for two days now. Our house has no insulation worthy of the title and our windows are all old school, requiring the summer screens and the winter storm-windows, of which we have none. And the glazing is so old the panes rattle in the frames.

We do all right, indoor-temp-wise, as long as the wind doesn’t blow. That’s when things get dicey at the Dunn homestead. A stiff wind can blow, seemingly, right through our living room and into the kitchen! The rooms that withstand it best are those that are stuffy at any other time. But ice on the trees can knock out the power lines—and does, on an average of twice a winter. The house becomes a dank, dark cave—then it’s time for staying in bed with extra blankets and warm clothes. Better to move to Nana’s, over in Heritage Hills—unless she’s got power out, too.

So winter is my least favorite season—I’ve always been overly sensitive to cold and my tobacco-smoking makes me even colder in my extremities due to clogged capillaries. I can easily stay warm by active exertion, but only until I get tired and sweaty—and then the sweat makes things worse. Plus, I get tired out in about 90 seconds, nowadays, so that’s no help at all.

But winter can be wonderfully silent. All the windows and doors are closed; none of the hot-rods are burning rubber in the street; no one is setting off fireworks—and the snow is something of a sound-baffle, absorbing sound rather than reflecting it. With really deep snow, we do get snowmobiles dragging around the local streets and that noise is terrible, but that’s only when the snow falls so hard and thick that the plows can’t keep up.

I’m always struck by the uselessness of modern homes without electricity running through them. It’s all fun and games until the power goes out. Suddenly, there’s no heat; there’s no running water (toilets don’t flush); there’s no phone or lamps or TV or Internet. In the warmer weather, a power outage can destroy hundreds of dollars-worth of frozen and refrigerated food—that’s the one advantage of a winter power-outage—the frozen food is still safe, if I put it on the porch. Small comfort, when it gets so cold that I go outside to warm up; when reading is only possible during daylight; and when, the one time I really need the comfort of music, the iPod never outlasts the outage. Play my own music, you say? Sure, but when my fingers are cold nothing is more painful than playing on keys that are colder—when my fingers actually get colder from touching the keyboard!

When I said winter was nice and quiet, I didn’t mean quiet during a power outage—unlike me, everyone else in this neighborhood has a generator. It’s a chorus of diesel combustion engines, night and day, until power is restored. Now that’s annoying—and no less so for knowing those thumping-generator-people still have lights and running water—probably even heat. Speaking of which, I should like to know who designed home-heating furnaces to require electricity?—the darn things burn fuel, a AAA battery could handle the thermostat’s requirements—it’s poor design that’s lasted decades, and will no doubt remain for decades longer! O, I get so mad.

Luckily for me, I had just received my two new blankets, a queen-size and a throw, from Amazon when this cold snap arose—I had a wonderfully cozy few nights, rather than cursing the drafts and wishing I had more blankets. This new ‘plush’-type blanket material is very soft and warm—and they’ve somehow determined how to make them less static-ey than wool blankets, which is great. And my fears of a blackout during this big freeze were without cause.

I love winter when it stays outside.