dreamshark

 Yup, the tree pollen is flying, specifically my nemesis Juniper/Poplar.

I didn't even see the pollen.com notification until I noticed that my eyes were itchy and went looking for the email notice. Yeesh, it's only at Low/Medium level and it's really bothering me. Not a good sign. 

So the city of Minneapolis has declared a Snow Emergency so they can plow the streets. This involves an intricate neighborhood car ballet - move your cars off the Snow Emergency Routes by 9 pm tonight, then over to the odd side of the street by tomorrow morning, then back to the even sides. Okay, that's fine. We are now being notified in multiple ways (phone, email, etc) but the notifications never include the parking rules. Instead they refer you to the website, the phone hotline or the snail mail brochure that was sent out earlier.

It is my recollection that the rules reverse themselves each year. One year they plow the even sides first, the next year they plow the odd sides first.  My neighbor insists that they ALWAYS plow the even sides first, that they have been doing it this way for the entire 11 years he has lived in Minneapolis.

Long-time Minneapolitan residents - which version is true?

And is this just another variation on the increasingly perplexing philosophical question of our times - how do we know what is true?

It's .... snowing. Isn't it always warm and beautiful here, with golden leaves drifting slowly to the ground? And now they're saying we may have a Hard Freeze tonight.

WTF?

That's the pollen count in Minneapolis today according to pollen.com. Although they never explicitly said so, I had always assumed those numbers were on a scale of 1-10. Apparently not.

Had a moment of panic this morning when I noticed that it was only 60 degrees in the living room and the furnace wasn't running. But after a little experimentation and reflection, I think it's working as designed, just not keeping up. The radiators are all smokin' hot, even the one in Amber's room (Christmas miracle! For the first time in 28 years, it started heating up all the way to the top!). When the radiators start to cool down a little, the heat comes on for a while, then goes off again. I think it must have a cutoff of some kind to stop running when the water reaches some maximum temp, regardless of what the thermostat says. It's not supposed to be steam heat, after all. Unfortunately, this is a cavernous house with lots of heat leaks and one little radiator in each room just isn't keeping up with the heat suck.

It's actually perfectly comfortable upstairs, heat rising and all that. Oh, brain attack! How's about I close the door to the attic (which is heated entirely by heat rising from the lower floors). *duh* And maybe now would be a good time to turn on the oven and try out that beer bread mix my sister-in-law gave us for Christmas!

For the record, it was -22 this morning and breezy. Pretty cold for post-climate-change Minnesota, but I note that it is neither as cold nor as windy as the weather services predicted. I still think it's kind of an over-reaction to close down the city for this (especially since this is pretty much what winter was always like back in the '70's when I moved here). But my management went with the flow and sent everybody email telling us to "work from home," so that's what I'm doing. 

I personally rode out the storm in the Costco in St. Louis Park. On the plus side, they not only have a backup power supply that keeps on enough lights for people to find their way to the front of the store, it keeps the cash registers working! On the down side, when something sets off the in-store screeching intrusion alarm, there is not a single person in the store that has the authority to turn it off!!!  Aaarghh.

I got home to find our trees mostly intact, and a few resolute gamers playing games by LED mini-lantern. Power was still out when we went to bed, which was pretty miserable without fans to stir the air. But the power came back at about 6am, so all our food should be okay and all is well. thorintatge was out wandering around in the storm somewhere, but had been contacted by cell phone so we knew he was all right. It was a relief when he got home, though. I'll let him report his own adventures.

If anybody reading this is still without power and has food that could be frozen, we have some room in our big freezer. The fridge itself is pretty packed though (I did just get home from Costco, after all).

We're going but not sure if we should bother with a picnic with the weather so iffy.

There was a paper sign sticking up out of the snow on my street this morning announcing no parking on Wednesday because of STREET SWEEPING.  

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead lands, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliot would have loved this April. None of that damn warm weather, blooming lilacs, spring rains stirring dull roots to life. It's all dead lands out there now. Blick.

But an optimistic young cardinal that didn't get the memo is What-Cheering away out there in our side yard, bless his little heart. May you win the highest branches of the last remaining elm on the block, little cardinal.