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As Operation Marble Throne Room was set to commence on or about 02 December 2019, at approximately 0800 local, The Missus Herself was out and about purchasing some needed items for said operation. Whilst said items were not needed at the commencement of the operation, the love of my life wanted those items in stock and ready to go when the time came for them to be brought into action. (In less fancy talk, she went out and purchased faucet assemblies for the brand new vanity which has been in my basement for the last cuppla months, waiting for it's time on the stage, so to speak.)
Left to mine own devices for an entire Sunday afternoon, I had only one task (set by myself) to be completed before sundown. That task was to mount the Christmas candles in the windows facing south and east on the first floor of the manse and mount same in the south, east, and west facing windows of the second floor. (For those of you of a European-bent, that would be the ground and first floors respectively.)
Before commencing said task, my cellular device chortled at me to indicate that I had incoming traffic. Gazing at the display on said cellular device I saw that it was the youngest of my offspring, The WSO. As I was in the midst of deploying Christmas candles and trying to talk with the youngest, I was a bit distracted. It was only on the second candle that I actually looked outside. It was snowing. Snowing like a sumbitch.
"Fire truck** me, it's snowing!" I exclaimed.
As The WSO was speaking to me through the built-in phone thingy*** in her car, I should have realized that the grand-progeny might be in the car with her. Which, of course, they were.
"Mom, grandpa said a bad word!" I heard in the background.
"No baby, it's snowing and I see a fire truck outside." I said, attempting to cover my verbal misstep.
"Really grandpa?" Asked the eldest of The WSO's progeny.
"Um, um, um..." I fumbled.
"Of course baby, I'm sure grandpa wouldn't use a bad word." sayeth The WSO.
"Why not, he does all the time?" Was my granddaughter's riposte.
"Sorry babe, grandpa did say a bad word, and I apologize."
With that out of the way, The WSO went about her way and I returned to my Christmas candling activity.
As The Missus Herself was out and about and the snow showed no sign of abating, I was becoming a bit concerned. Though The Missus Herself is an excellent driver, she doesn't like to drive in the snow (and now you're saying "Well, who does?" Uh, I do, I rather enjoy the challenge). As it was starting to stick to the street, things were starting to look a bit dicey.
At that point she pulled into the driveway, her faucet assembly acquisition trip complete. As she came into the house, she exclaimed...
"What crazy weather! It's turning to rain now."
I responded with, "Well, it is December."
Thanks to that lead-in pictorial, I now know why we get rain, snow, sleet, and freezing rain during the winter. Though it all starts as snow (depending on cloud altitude) what we get at ground level depends on what temperature bands that precipitation went through as it obeyed the law of gravity. Which is kinda interesting. To me at any rate.
Welcome to December. It's supposed to turn to snow again Monday night. Yes, it's been wet and drizzly all Monday, not a lovely day at all****. Still better than a sharp stick in the eye and one does not need to shovel rain.
So we've got that going for us...
* The term "hotter than Hell" also gets used. Not sure if there are parts of Hell that are cold and other parts that are hot, I also don't wish to find out.
** Yeah, I went full bore, the real deal, didn't mention fire trucks at all which, as ye shall see, was a bit of a mistake on my part.
*** built-in phone thingy is, of course, technical jargon.
**** While most folks would not call the weather we had on Monday "lovely," it did have a sort of gray, misty magnificence to it. I like a gray day now and again, bring the clouds down low and it is pretty in some ways. YMMV
Well, I’m gonna put the blame 50/50 on that one. I mean, you did say the word, but she put a retired military guy on speakerphone in front of the kids, so she has to know it’s a possibility. Even now (as opposed to when you were a lad and Bell first invented that marvelous distance-speaking machine) the default assumption is that phone conversations are 1-on-1 unless otherwise specified.
ReplyDeleteNow, if she told you that, well...
No, I was not forewarned, but with son-in-law at sea, I should have known better.
DeleteTruth be told, the granddaughters are pretty savvy, it's all stuff they've heard before what with being Navy brats and all.
Dad used to sling those around under his breath. Mom would probably have pulled his tongue out and whipped him with it if he'd ever done it around her. I got to brush my teeth with Ivory soap on more than one occasion for little things like "crap" and "blankety blank blank". (I don't remember where I heard it, I was young enough that I didn't know what it meant, and I will never forget the taste of Ivory soap.)
ReplyDeleteLast time I said crap around mom, she looked at me, and said, "You have something on your tongue that I wouldn't care to hold in my hand." It got my attention like a slap on the face with a cold wet washrag.
I learned early (6 years old) what words were probably a bad idea to use around the parental units.
DeleteI think I "unlearned" all of that when I went into the Air Force.
I do believe there is a required instructional course for E-4s of all branches on 'French' words and their proper use. Some E-3s are eligible to take the course, of course.
DeleteSo, since you retired as an E-7, it is quite logical that your extensive 'French' vocabulary is extensive, since for you it was basically a refresher course and activation of long-unused (they were long-unused, right?) vocabulary.
Not to mention the OJT received from Day 1 of Basic Training...
DeleteAn, the old good times. Depending on the circumstances, mom would switch between Ivory and Castile, almost got to like Ivory. But the one I hated was mechanics soap, it took days to get the grit out of my teeth.
ReplyDeleteMechanics soap?!?! Yeah, that would be awful.
DeleteNever heard the really bad words around the house when growing up though my mom was more prone to use the underworld word sometimes (hey she WAS a Navy vet after all). Sounds like you need to remember security protocols at all times when communicating with the progeny since grand-progeny will probably be in proximity Sarge.
ReplyDeleteI should know better, COMSEC and all that.
DeleteAh, grey leaden skies. My personal favorite. Must be that leaden, heavy, 'gonna dump something on you' type of cloud, else, yes sports fans, Beans can get sunburned under un-leaden skies. Heavy clouds with a slight to moderate wind, not enough to cut bitter icy fingers through one's clothing, but enough just to put some nip in the air. Ahhhhh.
ReplyDeleteLast night it got down to 35. So, of course, being freaks of nature, Mrs. Andrew and I opened up the apartment and drove the inner temps down to 60. Ahhhhh.... sooo peacefull... I love sleeping in cold weather. If it keeps up I can do my favorite and put on a heavy blanket (for we have discovered, long before the heavy blanket wrap for feeling better thingy that heavy blankets helped make me sleep better and more soundly and with better dreams, and it's something one can't do if the house is above 65 degrees, and is a sketchy thing to do between 60 and 65, but I was too lazy and comfy to drag out the heavy blanket, and the dog was curled under the covers so heating object was with me, and he's as or more comforting than a heavy blanked, well until he digs his claws into my skin while moving around, and where were we with this line of thought, uh, maybe I need to quit typing...)
We're doing the decorating this weekend. Going to get the tree Wednesday or Thursday from the storage unit. Much fun will occur as we only put up the front face of the top of a 7' tree, and have decided to use the remaining branches to line the tops of the bookshelves in order to hang more ornaments (we likes ornaments, shiny shiny ornaments....)
Oh. Glad The Missus Herself made it home before weather conditions worsened. Always nice to have one's family not on the road with idiots during 'frisky' weather. (Frisky weather is defined when one can drive well during it but it brings out the inner idiot in most everyone else. Like the first heavy rainfall, or any rainfall for that matter, in Florida. I assume snow has the same effect, especially in Rhode Island (where, according to what I see for East Providence and Warrick, competitive drinking starts somewhere around 9am, and the semi-finals around 4pm, so by eveningtime most people in those two places are just plain sloshed if not hammered. Well, according to the TV that is.))
Hahaha!
DeleteNot to mention Little Rhody's thriving amateur and professional competitive drinking leagues.
Bad language? Nah, not I. Well, except....all the times it slips out, no more than a few times a day.
ReplyDelete"
"What's that dear?"....."That often?"
F#%K!
Heh.
DeleteSome people use "fire truck" so often they forget others might be offended.
ReplyDeleteGuilty as charged...🙄
DeleteI don't understand why people insist on using my favorite verb as an adjective. On another but related note I think climate change is real and has affected the oyster harvest. I ate nine the other night and only one worked. Or maybe it's old age?
DeleteHahaha!
DeleteI blame the oysters!
Oysters... the liver and kidneys of the Seas. Bleh.
DeleteToo much of allergy snot and lung butter in my life to eat something that reminds me of snot and lung butter. Double bleh.
I avoid them myself.
DeleteThat precip you got was a howlin' blizzard three days ago!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of bad words, I'm thinking about the first time I went home on leave and told my brother to pass the firetrucking potatoes. They break you down and build you back up but it takes a while to re-calibrate the whole civilized behavior thing.
Fun post!
I thought that snow looked familiar.
DeleteI retired 20 years ago, I still ain't re-calibrated to being civilized. Do I catch Hell for that? You betcha!
My Mom used Fells Naptha for mouth (and behavior) cleansing. Ivory would have been like a treat!
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned by PrairieAdventure, you got what was left of what dumped 22" on my "Snow Gauge"!
And it's been high 40's here, so most of it has melted and drained to the Cache La Poudre River.....
Classic Front Range weather, howling blizzard one day, in the 40s (and higher) the next. Had school cancelled at CSU one winter, while in Denver they were playing golf!
Deletei get new tires on the F-150 on Friday, at 0800 CST!
ReplyDeleteAh, new tire smell.
Delete