Snow again

Well, I've done it again - bragged about our wonderful, balmy, warm Arizona weather to all of my friends in much colder and snowier climes.  And this is what I get for it.



The weatherman says we may have 4 inches or more by tomorrow but the temperature is forecast to go up to the 50's by Monday so this will not last.

The worst part is that the wet, sticky snow messes up my television reception because it sticks to the satellite dish and blocks the signal from coming through.  I've been up on a ladder brushing it off and even sprayed the dish with silicone spray but so far that's not working.  Next up: cooking spray.  Or maybe WD-40.  That's supposed to fix everything.

Bridge progress . . and weather

Here's the latest update on the bridge construction on Highway 89-A over Viewpoint Road in Prescott Valley.  Concrete on both sides of the road now.  First the north side.

 Then the south side.



Then the weather.  It's getting breezy and the temperature is dropping.  There's a prediction of rain and snow for about the next week.  We don't expect much, if any, snow here but perhaps in the upper elevations to the north and the east.  But . . . in 1996, SWMBO and I opened a bookstore here on March 3rd.  The weather up until then had been dry and mostly warm.  But during the night before our grand opening, a snowstorm hit and the big day dawned with a lot of snow.  SWMBO said "I'm staying home," but I was determined to open the store on schedule.  I think we had about three customers all day.  It definitely wasn't worth it.  The only thing good about late snowfalls here is that it never lasts long.  Within a day or two all the snow had melted away and the sunshine was back.  Now that we're retired (mostly) we can just stay inside at home and watch the weather through a window.  So, I say . . . "bring it on!"

Blackness

The weather is changing.  There's a cold breeze out there tonight.  Possible rain, possible snow is on the way.  The moon is 98 percent full tonight but shrouded in clouds.

It's a Sherlock Holmes kind of night.  One could imagine hearing the howling of the hounds on the moors.  If one had hounds.  And moors.

What could protect me against the terrors of the night?  There's only one hope.

My faithful companion.  Blackwell.  The blackest of cats.

Pizza

O.K.  This is my second.  I'm kind of proud of it.

It's actually round!  Well, mostly.  My first one was shaped sort of like an infected kidney.  But I figured out how to roll one out with a rolling pin and made this one mostly round.  I also doped it with a lot of sauce, a lot of cheese and a lot of pepperoni.  And a lot of Italian seasoning.

My second one was a lot better than the first one.  I should have baked this one a little longer to firm up the crust a bit but I'm learning.

Now, if I could just be a little more patient with my photography . . .

Old Time Rock 'n' Roll

I heard a piece on National Public Radio a few minutes ago about a young couple and the music played at their wedding reception.  She had a favorite song, he said it wasn't right.  Sometime during the reception, she talked to the band and the result was . . .



I love this song, too.

For some reason it reminds me of a disk jockey I once worked with in Bismarck, North Dakota.  His name was Jack Fisher and he was known as The Old Reb on the air.  But previously he had worked a morning show at a station in Minneapolis which was sponsored by, of all companies, a beer maker.  He called his show the Beer Bash and used to say (at 8 or 9 in the morning), "Hey, ladies, wouldn't a nice cold beer taste good right now?"  Ah, those were the days.

Update: One of my readers is a colleague from my earliest days in radio.  He has a real name but I have always called him Danny Bananas and by that name he shall be known here.  He sends occasional comments by e-mail and I have just received one from him.  He says the d.j. I mentioned was not the Old Reb, he was the Ol Reb.  I stand corrected.  And I just remembered the name he used on his Beer Bash.  It was Throckmorton.  Throckmorton and the Beer Bash.  Those were the days!

The Valentine's Day Massacre

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, Illinois, occurred a mere 82 years ago, in 1929.  Al Capone was in Florida but his gunsels lined up 7 rival gangsters from the Bugs Moran gang and machine-gunned them.  Capone later went to prison on evasion of income tax charges.  He died in 1947 of cardiac arrest at his home in Miami Beach.   Moran died of lung cancer in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in 1957.

All of which is to wish you all a happy St. Valentine's Day.  It was a little calmer around our home.  I fixed a Shrimp Scampi bake, Fettucini Alfredo, a salad, a freshly-baked loaf of French bread and we tested out a couple of straight-from-the-supermarket cheesecake samples for dessert.  Oh, and a bottle of Chardonnay.  I meant to take pictures but everything was getting done at the same time and in the excitement I forgot.  So this is the only one I got, after the cheesecakes.

The BRD communicated by e-mail this afternoon and told me of her menu for herself and her Beau Jack: Brie en croute, shrimp cocktails, lobster bisque with salad, Red Velvet cake and champagne.

Sounds like all four of us did pretty good today.  I hope your day (and eating) went just as well.

The anxiety dream

I used to be a television news producer.  Local television station in Phoenix.  But I decided what stories would run in the newscast, in what order they would run, which anchor would read each story, rode herd on the reporters who did the stories, and usually wrote much of the rest of the newscast, including the idiotic "teases" for the next segment.  I also used to start my job by writing: "Good evening, I'm _______________ (and) Good evening, I'm _________________."  I always used to say that if I didn't include that page in the script the anchors would forget to introduce themselves.

Well, those days are long in my past now and I don't think any of the current anchors would forget to mention their names at the top of the newscast.

I left television news in 1985.  That's 26 years ago.  But I have had a recurrent dream over the years.  In it, I am still producing newscasts but with one major difference.  I never get it done.  Problems develop throughout the day, usually of my own doing and procrastination.  Suddenly it is time for the newscast to go on the air and I have . . . NOTHING . . . prepared!  No script, no video, no pictures, nothing!  I usually go running down the stairs to the studio and hand the anchors a wadded handful of wire copy and  . . . then . . . I wake up in a cold sweat.

This is my anxiety dream.  I have learned from talking to people over the years that everyone has one.  For instance, SWMBO's anxiety dream usually involves moving her home and packing boxes and never being ready, never getting it all done.  She has, thanks to me and others, had to go through the "moving experience" a number of times in her life.  Once, we moved out of her large house to an apartment 20 miles or so away and when she came back to do the last run-through of the house, she found her son (who supposedly was far away starting a new life) sleeping on a bare floor in his previous room.  He didn't know we were moving, we didn't know he was returning to "his home."  But, you can see why SWMBO would have a "moving" anxiety dream.

All of this is to explain that last night, I had my "producer dream" again.  And it was great!  Everything went well all day, I had a script to hand each of the anchors at newstime, the reporter tape "packages" were ready to go and the newscast went beautifully.  I told SWMBO about it today and she said "So are you finally released?"  I said "I think so.  I hope so."

We all have anxieties, most of them hidden in our psyches.  They tend to come out and plague us in our dreams.  I really do hope mine are gone.

Except - - - now I find myself thinking about my problems with cooking!

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On another topic entirely.  The BRD and her Beau Jack went to the Grand Canyon today with his son and the son's fiancee.  A picture was snapped at the rim.

I told her it should be captioned "The Silver Foxes".  She said it would be lovely and true.  So here they are.  The Silver Foxes.  Damned good looking couple, don't you think?