Life Inside the Bomb Cyclone

All of a sudden the meteorologists are giving us their fancy vocabulary instead of allowing the media to create terms like 'snowmageddon'. So instead of living inside a blizzard (or a snow globe), we are inside the bomb cyclone.

What is it like? Today when I woke up it was not snowing. By 8am it was snowing. The black cat (Evil Kitty) came in with snowflakes on him. I am also watching the barometer (because we have one finally). It was at 29.8 last night, 29.4 this morning, and is already down to 29.3. I am being such a geek.

I did some planning yesterday afternoon. We have been home for days on end. We went out to dinner last week some time. But we also had a snowstorm, house guests, and the holidays. Since then we have been eating leftovers, morning, noon, and night. Last night I suggested we go out to dinner. Which we did. It was nice. I am so sick of my own cooking.

But I digressed. Its snowing like hell right now. The temperature is a balmy 18 degrees. Yesterday was 28. But for a week before that it was around 10 for a high. And Saturday is predicted to be around zero. (Can't wait.)

My plans for the day include catching up on the DVR, knitting, weaving, and reading. I will not leave the house unless I get really motivated. I might make some kind of something out of the last of the left over (damn) lamb from Saturday.  We might even pull out the scrabble game and play for a bit. I will ice my knee for a bit and when my back starts hurting I have my heating pad.

I also do not have any doctor appointments planned until next week. But I do have to make some calls on prescriptions... My insurance company changed mail order prescription provider as of the first of the year and everything is currently a mystery. I also have to make some notes on past and upcoming doctor appointments so I don't lose my mind when I can't remember anything.

So life inside the Bomb Cyclone isn't any more complicated than during any other snow storm. What would I be doing if we weren't having a 'bomb cyclone'? Probably the same thing, except I would not be watching the barometer.

Public utlities

Okay this is a bit off my usual topics but I have had my fill of dealing with public entities this weekend. Thursday night a little thunderstorm blew on through the area. It caused Boston's July 4th celebration to be cut short, even though it had been moved up a day. Anyone who was awake through it, said it was significant. Me, I slept through it in a room with a fan and an air conditioner running.

Then Friday morning, Arthur came to visit and we got 2.5 inches of rain from about 9am through the next morning. That was on top of what had already come down over night. (9am is when I found my little rain gauge and other garden decor in the basement and decided to run outside and put them out in the garden between the rain drops. I did get a little damp but I did dry off.

Then we started seeing all the damage. Never call NStar or Verizon on the 4th of July. NStar got me a cranky lady (who had probably received a few million calls already) who said the branch swinging on the lines across the street was not their problem. NStar's line is the top cable only. They don't want to hear about anything else. They didn't care that it isn't really a branch but the top 20' of a tree which are now 30' down the road hanging 15' up.

 

I then tried calling Verizon and the only person I got was a guy in Florida in billing. He didn't know who I should talk to but did think that a technician might be able to help me. 30 minutes later I was still on hold.

I then picked up my cell and called the town's DPW and spoke to the nice guy who said they had been out all day already cleaning up. He said they might have a little more pull with NStar.

Yesterday, my husband noticed that the support wire for the power cables that come to our house from pole is disconnected. I considering waiting until Monday so that I could speak to a nicer human being at NStar. I was informed by my better half that I should call today to get in their cue for repairs.

I called NStar again and got another crabby lady who informed me that she would send it to dispatch and they would decide if it was their responsibility or not.  I didn't bother to tell her that I had already checked their website and it clearly looks to me that it is their problem.

All we can do now is wait and see if it is miraculously repaired by NStar. We do not need to be home so it should just happen. I will wait until tomorrow and try calling the town and Verizon again. I hate dealing with public utlities

Another Giant Storm

I am very intrigued by how winter storms are now named. I did read some semi logical government rationale (is that an oxymoron - semi logical government rationale?) Nemo brought us a (whopping big) pile of snow. Q was somewhat mysterious - just like in a Bond film. Rocky is just rocking along with snow and rain. If we are already up to R and its only February, we might even run out of letters - what does the oh-so-smart government do then? Switch to the Greek alphabet?

All these giant storms could be doing lots of things:

• relieving drought in the south, central and western states. Maybe this will be a year where the rare desert flowers bloom again.
• a precursor of climate change where we get lots of giant (named) storms (until there are no more letters) which cause a lot of storm surges, erosion, power outages, structural damage and more trauma.
• signifying it might be a good time to sell your beach front property quick before the next storm wipes it out.

We live about 5 miles straight inland (as the crow flies) at about 150' above sea level. We joke that we might own beachfront property in a few years.

Today we are getting the remnants of Rocky as he rocks his way through New England. I believe that we are not due for another storm until next week. It will be nice to have a weekend where we aren't house bound due to the weather.

These big storms are hard for me. Due to lymphedema arm and arthritis body, I can't shovel snow. Or vacuum - but that doesn't really help in a snow storm. Its hard enough for me to clean off my car.

I will get through this giant rain storm and wait for some needed sun shine to appear.