The snowstorm was a dud

All last night the wind raged and howled as snow came down at what seemed like a rapid rate; but even as the snow was falling it was apparent that the storm was more or less a dud. Most of yesterday's snow melted on contact with the roads and the driveway even as it piled up on the old snow in the yard and appeared impressive. And when the snow did stick it insulated the roads and driveway so there was a layer of relatively warm wet under the five or so inches that actually did accumulate.

Last evening Linda and I had a moderately exciting drive back from Sam and Deb's house at about 9:40. By then there were a couple of inches of snow on the roads where the wind was drifting it across from fields in exposed areas. All in all we had less problems on the road than we did in playing pinochele with Sam and Deb. They beat us handily in the first game and were leading heavily in the second when we decided we had better leave. Debra had an amazing run of luck with her cards. It seemed that neither she nor Sam could bid without the other having eight or ten meld and a couple of aces. I don't think they went set more than a couple of times and they took most of the bids.

This morning the snow looked impressive while it was still coming down; but when I went out at about noon to plow I was able to do the driveway in two passes.

I just returned from a trip out to the post office and the gas station. The roads were already simply wet since the sun has been out. And, thankfully, all the essential services, like the gas station and the tanning salon were open as normal.

There's something to be said for snowstorms at this time of the year. The sun is high enough to clean things up pretty quickly once the snow stops. We're hoping that Mark and Linda L were able to get their driveway plowed because we're planning to meet them for dinner if they can do it. The plan is to go to The Texas Roadhouse, which we've been wondering about for years as we've passed it on Route 422 going back and forth to the Ballroom of High.

We deserve steaks tonight because yesterday we ate pretty healthy beef barley soup that I made. And, on Wednesday we had only a light dinner because we needed to get out of here pretty promptly to go up to Pottstown for our Tango lesson.

Speaking of the tanning salon, Alex called the other night to tell us that those SOBs down in Washington are trying to tax tanning. It seems they were going to tax botox treatments and boob jobs; but the cosmetic surgeons, the Botox maker and the boob implant people must have been able to put together a fatter set of bribe envelopes than the tanning people.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2124186720091221

Who knew there were 20,000 tanning salons in the U.S.? Imagine how many wrinkle wranglers and boob ballooning surgeons there must be to outbid the tanning industry when it comes to bribing Harry Reid and the other corrupt Senators and Congresscritters down there in DC.

Is this a great country or what?

Three bucks a day! And for what?

I just opened our electric bill for mid September to mid October and discovered that the Philadelphia Electric Company is ripping us off for $99.19. That's more than three bucks per day just for providing light and hot water and heat and electric fire for cooking and power for the water well pump and and the juice which somehow makes it cold inside the big white box in the kitchen and for electrons to run around in this computer thingy and do whatever the hell they do in there to make the pictures appear.

It's outrageous, and I'm thinking that we shouldn't put up with it anymore. I have half a mind to take one of my big tree limb loppers back behind the house and clip the line by which those blood suckers at PECO send their outrageously expensive electrons in. That would cure our addiction to them. We don't need their damn newfangled electricity.

I just finished listening to an audio book that made it sound very romantic and quaint to light a candle on a moonless winter night when you need to go out to the outhouse to take a dump. I would mention the name of that book but I can't open up a new window in the browser right now because I'm typing this on our primitive old computer instead of on my less primitive work laptop. I'm doing that because PECO's damn electrons are for some reason refusing to jump from the thing with the little green light on it up here in the computer room down to the laptop on the dining room table. Or else maybe the electrons running around in the laptop are all confused; or maybe they're angry with the electrons up here in the computer room.

At any rate I'm not in a mood to be kind to PECO and all of the modern world right now even though $99.19 is the lowest electric bill we've had for the past few years. What the hell good are PECO's electrons if they won't even jump to my laptop properly.

Linda's just gone off to church, so the coast is clear. I'm thinking that I had best wear my rubber creek wading boots when I take a lopper out back to end all this electricity trouble once and for all.

Update - I take it all back; and I'm glad I decided to go out to the tanning salon to get some rays before cutting off our electric service, so to speak. Someone at PECO must have seen my complaint because they're now sending me well behaved electrons that are jumping to the laptop just fine.

I have to go now because I need to start a pot of split pea soup for dinner and then get out there and mow the lawn which is getting high from last week's warm weather.

Earlier Linda bought me a quarter pound of sliced pepperoni to put in the pea soup. I've made it that way before. Trust me that it comes a whole lot better with chopped up pepperoni than with the bland smoked ham that the Goya Split Pea package calls for. Also, forget the measly one carrot and one small onion that the package calls for. Chop up and put in a couple or three big carrots and a couple of onions. And also, add some chopped celery. And another thing, you can't cook split pea soup too long. Three or four hours is the minimum.

Update 2 - Earlier I wrote that you should chop up the carrots, onions and celery for the pea soup; but it's much easier to grate them with the side of your cheese grater that cuts things into little scalloped pieces. And it has an additional benefit in that the smaller pieces melt into the soup better, which is what you want.

You have to be careful when you grate vegetables like that though. And it's best to be willing to throw out a significant sized piece of the vegetable that you're grating. If you grate the carrots or the celery stalks down too far, or if you grate an onion down too thin, you stand a chance of ending up with little scalloped piece of your fingers in the mix. That hurts a bit if it happens when you're grating celery or carrots; and it hurts enough to make you see vivid colors for a moment or two if it happens when you're grating an onion. But it's not like a catastrophe or anything. Little scallop shaped pieces of finger graft back on pretty well if you wash them off, put them back carefully into the holes they came from and then wrap the fingers in a bandaid to hold the pieces in place. It's delicate work with one hand though, and slows down the soup making; so try to avoid it.

Don't tell Linda about any of this. She still gives me grief about being careful almost every time she sees me with a knife. And all because I managed to cut both of my thumbs that day more than thirty years ago when we had the cider making party at the old Trooper house.