o/`Heavennnn... I'm in heavennnnnn o/`
A perfectly clear, entirely unbiased, supremely
intelligent, and sublimely realistic view of life.
Showing posts with label pennsylvania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pennsylvania. Show all posts
Monday, February 8, 2010
Here We Go Again!
And god said, "Let there be snow. On Tuesday and Wednesday. Lots more. Bury the bitch under the green dot."
o/`Heavennnn... I'm in heavennnnnn o/`
o/`Heavennnn... I'm in heavennnnnn o/`
Saturday, February 6, 2010
The Perfect Snow
It's snowing. It's snowing where *I* am. It's not only snowing where *I* am, it's a "Winter Storm Warning" record-breaking sort of thing with the promise of some pretty serious stuff, and 20" have fallen so far.
If you've read more than two words of this blog, you know how I feel about snow. I love snow. I live for snow. Snow is the single most perfect thing on earth.
My life, having sucked for pretty much the last year due to some fairly intolerable pain that is ever present, seriously needed some cheering up and Hubby came to my rescue in the most fabulous way.
Late yesterday afternoon after it started snowing, he had me crawl out of bed and down the stairs (an agonizing trip I take no more than once or twice a week) and into the living room, where he planted my butt on our cushiest sofa, which sits right in front of a picture window. He wrapped me in my favorite pink fur and sequin THRO blankie and made me a cup of steaming hazlenut coffee laced with Nutella. There we sat, watching the beautiful, silent snow fall until it got too dark to see. And that's when the real magic began.
Richard grabbed two uplights we had bought to highlight some groups of plants we have in the den, and put super-bright flood lights meant for the track lighting in my studio into them. He placed them on the window sill facing out the window, and made a tent of aluminum foil and cardboard above to eliminate any "light noise" that might escape from the light cans. He aimed them at the Bartlett pear tree a few feet from the window and turned them on. Every flake that fell was suddenly visible and glistened like a dazzling crystal as it passed through the light in front of the illuminated snow-covered tree branches.
The snow and the moment were indeed, perfection.
If you've read more than two words of this blog, you know how I feel about snow. I love snow. I live for snow. Snow is the single most perfect thing on earth.
My life, having sucked for pretty much the last year due to some fairly intolerable pain that is ever present, seriously needed some cheering up and Hubby came to my rescue in the most fabulous way.
Late yesterday afternoon after it started snowing, he had me crawl out of bed and down the stairs (an agonizing trip I take no more than once or twice a week) and into the living room, where he planted my butt on our cushiest sofa, which sits right in front of a picture window. He wrapped me in my favorite pink fur and sequin THRO blankie and made me a cup of steaming hazlenut coffee laced with Nutella. There we sat, watching the beautiful, silent snow fall until it got too dark to see. And that's when the real magic began.
Richard grabbed two uplights we had bought to highlight some groups of plants we have in the den, and put super-bright flood lights meant for the track lighting in my studio into them. He placed them on the window sill facing out the window, and made a tent of aluminum foil and cardboard above to eliminate any "light noise" that might escape from the light cans. He aimed them at the Bartlett pear tree a few feet from the window and turned them on. Every flake that fell was suddenly visible and glistened like a dazzling crystal as it passed through the light in front of the illuminated snow-covered tree branches.
The snow and the moment were indeed, perfection.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
HaiCuckoo - They Say It's Like Flu
Rain, rain go away
The mosquitoes are on wing
I might get West Nile
The mosquitoes are on wing
I might get West Nile
HaiCuckoo - You Expect FOOD Too?
Lovely potted plants
I water you, yet you die
What more do you want????
I water you, yet you die
What more do you want????
Monday, June 29, 2009
Hey! Represent ME, WIll Ya????
No humor today, just a copy of the letter I just sent to my PA State senators with regard to the new pending legislation to restrict tobacco sales via mail. Feel free to copy it, edit it to make it your own, and share it with your own state senators. Whether you smoke or not, it's time to stop allowing our government to micromanage us and restrict our ability to make our own choices regarding any activity that is legal in this country. I'm a big gurl, I can make my own decisions, thankyouverymuch.
------------------------------------
To Senators Arlen Specter and Robert Casey,
Please stop the ongoing blatant discrimination against smokers. I understand paying taxes to "give back" for my addiction (addiction, NOT "habit"... though I readily admit an addiction I enjoy) and am in a financial position that this doesn't put an undue hardship on me (the majority who are targeted by these taxes are not), but restricting my ability to purchase tobacco through the mail so I can smoke the all natural Native American cigarette brand of my choice is not beneficial to anyone and really is nothing short of discrimination. Not only will this restrict my right to smoke completely additive-free tobacco (and we both know the new government-mandated babysitting of tobacco will not significantly change the mainstream tobacco products I prefer not to smoke) but it will detrimentally affect the Native American Nations and companies who distribute their products in the midst of the worst economy I have seen in my (thus far, very healthy) 49 years.
Smoking tobacco is legal and until it is not, it is my right to choose whether I smoke or not and where I choose to purchase it. By contrast, prescription drugs are quickly becoming the most abused drugs in this country, and are readily available through the mail. Even more pointedly, I could easily buy a gun online and negatively affect a whole lot more people in mere seconds than I ever will in my lifetime as a result of smoking. It's time to put things into proper perspective and for government to stop parading peacock-proud because they bask in the glow of the brownie points they earn by attacking the "easy" controversial issues while ignoring the matters that are infinitely more important to our society as a whole. In case you haven't noticed, this nation has lost its patience with "business as usual."
Smoking has already been so restricted that it physically affects no one other than the smoker, and cigarettes have been taxed above and beyond the call of duty to defray the health care costs attributed to smokers. Enough is enough... I have a loud voice and use it, I smoke, and I VOTE. As my representative I EXPECT you to support my rights to do anything I choose to do within the law and make sure that choice is afforded the same rights as every other industry in this country. It's time for YOU to represent ME.
Susan Maxwell Schmidt
------------------------------------
To Senators Arlen Specter and Robert Casey,
Please stop the ongoing blatant discrimination against smokers. I understand paying taxes to "give back" for my addiction (addiction, NOT "habit"... though I readily admit an addiction I enjoy) and am in a financial position that this doesn't put an undue hardship on me (the majority who are targeted by these taxes are not), but restricting my ability to purchase tobacco through the mail so I can smoke the all natural Native American cigarette brand of my choice is not beneficial to anyone and really is nothing short of discrimination. Not only will this restrict my right to smoke completely additive-free tobacco (and we both know the new government-mandated babysitting of tobacco will not significantly change the mainstream tobacco products I prefer not to smoke) but it will detrimentally affect the Native American Nations and companies who distribute their products in the midst of the worst economy I have seen in my (thus far, very healthy) 49 years.
Smoking tobacco is legal and until it is not, it is my right to choose whether I smoke or not and where I choose to purchase it. By contrast, prescription drugs are quickly becoming the most abused drugs in this country, and are readily available through the mail. Even more pointedly, I could easily buy a gun online and negatively affect a whole lot more people in mere seconds than I ever will in my lifetime as a result of smoking. It's time to put things into proper perspective and for government to stop parading peacock-proud because they bask in the glow of the brownie points they earn by attacking the "easy" controversial issues while ignoring the matters that are infinitely more important to our society as a whole. In case you haven't noticed, this nation has lost its patience with "business as usual."
Smoking has already been so restricted that it physically affects no one other than the smoker, and cigarettes have been taxed above and beyond the call of duty to defray the health care costs attributed to smokers. Enough is enough... I have a loud voice and use it, I smoke, and I VOTE. As my representative I EXPECT you to support my rights to do anything I choose to do within the law and make sure that choice is afforded the same rights as every other industry in this country. It's time for YOU to represent ME.
Susan Maxwell Schmidt
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Tornado Event Horizon
Tornadoes in southeastern Pennsylvania. Exactly how often does that happen? This isn't exactly Tornado Alley, it's actually pretty much The Land That Weather Forgot. In fact, anyone who has been playing along since the beginning of Reality Check knows that I started my journey into the blogging abyss with a post regarding my own personal inability to get snowed on, no matter how hard I try. So, is it any wonder this was the satellite map of an urgent tornado warning issued by the National Weather Service today? The box is so small and precise that it may as well have been issued as "Urgent Tornado Warning for Susan Maxwell Schmidt's House." Thankfully the "tornado event" didn't pan out to be any more than dime-sized hail.
As long as I live here, you will NEVER see this with a blizzard warning.
As long as I live here, you will NEVER see this with a blizzard warning.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Snow Event Horizon Part II (or It Never Snows on Me)
Predicted snowfall for East Nottingham, PA: 9-12"
Snowfall totals (directions in relation to East Nottingham, PA)
Snowfall totals (directions in relation to East Nottingham, PA)
- East Nantmeal, PA (north): 8.0"
- Wilmington, DE (east): 9.7"
- Middletown, DE (south, former snowless home base): 6.2"
- Lancaster County, PA (west): 7-9"
Snow Event Horizon?
I actually wrote this yesterday and for some reason it is what inspired me to finally get off my unblogged butt and share my view of reality with the world. Welcome to the abyss.
_____________________________________________
Anyone who knows me well knows I love snow. Snow rocks. When I lived in DE, I was always unhappy when the snow would make it to the C&D canal and not come down to me, which too often seemed the case.
Then we moved north to PA, to the fabled “west of the city” region where the snow was always predicted to fall whenever we longingly watched the local news from our snowless Delaware abode. We got lots of snow the first winter we were here and I was in heaven. I even bought R a snow blower for XMAS the following winter in anticipation of the many storms to come. That was five years ago. He has used it exactly *once*. East, west, north, south (including Middletown, DE, of course) get snow. Significant snow. Who doesn’t get snow? I don’t get snow. No matter where I happen to be and how much is actually predicted to fall where I *am*, where I *am* is the edge of the storm and the snow is jussssst outta reach of my outstretched, welcoming arms. I literally get snowed “around.” Always.
So this morning R and I sipped our morning mugs of the Elixir of Life, gazing hopefully out the window watching what they predict will be the one and only significant snowfall we get this year do its thing outside the bedroom window. A good, solid dusting of snow has already covered our and our neighbors’ rear lawns as far as the eye can see through the multitude of bare trees, bringing the hope, with less than my usual, well-earned dubiousness, of good things to come. At least it’s getting off to a good start and I can’t help but get excited. It’s actually snowing! On MY stuff!
Then I get up to, well… pee.
I walk into the bathroom and look with anticipation out the second story window to the front of the house, expecting to see an even bigger stretch of landscape blanketed in my beloved frosty white. But noooooo. What do I see surrounding me for acres and acres? Brown, barren, ugly dead grass. Mebbe a sort of “frosted’ look here and there, but otherwise absolutely nuttin’. Zilch. Nada. Zippo. Naught.
So it seems, as fate would so elegantly have it, that I have literally arrived on the snow event horizon, *possibly* about to be sucked into the black (white?) hole.
Or not.
_____________________________________________
Anyone who knows me well knows I love snow. Snow rocks. When I lived in DE, I was always unhappy when the snow would make it to the C&D canal and not come down to me, which too often seemed the case.
Then we moved north to PA, to the fabled “west of the city” region where the snow was always predicted to fall whenever we longingly watched the local news from our snowless Delaware abode. We got lots of snow the first winter we were here and I was in heaven. I even bought R a snow blower for XMAS the following winter in anticipation of the many storms to come. That was five years ago. He has used it exactly *once*. East, west, north, south (including Middletown, DE, of course) get snow. Significant snow. Who doesn’t get snow? I don’t get snow. No matter where I happen to be and how much is actually predicted to fall where I *am*, where I *am* is the edge of the storm and the snow is jussssst outta reach of my outstretched, welcoming arms. I literally get snowed “around.” Always.
So this morning R and I sipped our morning mugs of the Elixir of Life, gazing hopefully out the window watching what they predict will be the one and only significant snowfall we get this year do its thing outside the bedroom window. A good, solid dusting of snow has already covered our and our neighbors’ rear lawns as far as the eye can see through the multitude of bare trees, bringing the hope, with less than my usual, well-earned dubiousness, of good things to come. At least it’s getting off to a good start and I can’t help but get excited. It’s actually snowing! On MY stuff!
Then I get up to, well… pee.
I walk into the bathroom and look with anticipation out the second story window to the front of the house, expecting to see an even bigger stretch of landscape blanketed in my beloved frosty white. But noooooo. What do I see surrounding me for acres and acres? Brown, barren, ugly dead grass. Mebbe a sort of “frosted’ look here and there, but otherwise absolutely nuttin’. Zilch. Nada. Zippo. Naught.
So it seems, as fate would so elegantly have it, that I have literally arrived on the snow event horizon, *possibly* about to be sucked into the black (white?) hole.
Or not.
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