And So It Begins...

Monday, 05 December 2016, 0710 EST

Woke up yesterday with that whole "sniffling, sneezing, aching, coughing, stuffy-head, feverish" thing going on. Time for some DayQuil™, thinks I, not NyQuil™, as daylight is not far off. While it is still oh-dark-thirty, Mister Alarm will be singing the song of his people in just a few minutes. But first, the feline staff were requesting my presence in the kitchen, as they are wont to do upon my arising.

So, first I hit the medicine cabinet for a shot of DayQuil™, and was sore tempted to return to my slumbers, but both cats were waiting expectantly upon the stairs, eyeing me with this aura of "don't you dare go back to bed, we know it's Monday."

Well, they seem to know when I have to work and somehow they have gotten into my pay accounts and know that I am out of Paid Time Off (PTO) for the year. Whoa, unto me, for that is true (though I have salted away two and a half hours so I can leave early on the 22nd of December). So after the DayQuil™, I provided the feline staff with their rations, then stumbled back upstairs to gird my loins, er, get ready for work. (I've been asked to leave my loins out of polite conversation, which I include the blog as being. Sort of.)

As I stumbled through my morning ablutions, I kept thinking of how crappy I felt. Then I started thinking of the tasks which lay before me that day and felt a little better. Though work can be a bother at times, my work right now is rather interesting and piques my curiosity on a nearly daily basis. (A long winded way of saying "every day," I know, but there it is. It always irks me when people say "on a daily basis," but I will use it from time to time just to increase the word count. Yes, that phrase does make its way into the documentation I am occasionally called upon to produce for my employer. And no, I don't get paid by the word. If that were the case I would ever have a thesaurus by my side.)

(Source)

Um, I thought you were called Tyrannosaurus Rex?

(Source)

Now where were we?

Oh yes, moving right along. After getting all ready for work, feeling a bit better thanks to Mister DayQuil™, I threw open the curtains and what to my wondering eyes did appear?

(S0urce)

Alas no, but close, very close, you're in the right stanza at any rate.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer. (Source)

Yup, that stuff seen in the opening photo, new-fallen snow. Though there was a sliver of moon the night before, she was long gone by the time I awakened and noticed the white stuff scattered about the neighborhood. (And all over my car, which required brushing off, sigh, times to come...)

Still and all, the sight of snow, and less than three weeks to Christmas, put me in a holiday mood, regardless of how crappy I felt due to that whole "sniffling, sneezing, aching, coughing, stuffy-head, feverish" thing. Which Mister DayQuil™ was helping to alleviate. Though I think seeing the snow helped too.

Which puts me in mind of this. (Sean, Mike you can sing along!)

Ah yes, 'tis the season!