Boxes, Blogs and Cold Weather

Today seemed like a good day to forget about unpacking boxes. After all I spent most of yesterday’s morning and early afternoon unpacking the boxes in Stasia’s play room. Got all her books, toys, games and other stuff in places where she can at least access them. So I’m taking today off.

Spent a couple of hours this morning on the phone with the waste management (trash pickup) people trying to find out why they didn’t bother picking up our trash and yet picked up all the neighbors’ trash. Here in the south they have 2 days a week of trash pick up, Tuesday and Friday for our route. We dutifully got the trash out on Monday nite cause we didn’t know what time they picked up… it seems it’s quite early 5:45 AM. I called yesterday and then again today and they still haven’t made it. Hopefully Friday will be our lucky day.

When I mentioned to Dil, Jenia that I was surprised there were two pickup days, she mentioned that when they had lived in other parts of the south they always had 2 days probably because there is heat down here and it could get very pungent with trash sitting around for a week. Made sense to me.

Another hour or so was taken with phone calls with DirectTV to get the installation up and running. I kind of liked not having TV for the last week. We watched some movies and that seemed to take up some time. But a good portion of the other time that would normally be spent with the TV at least being on, we spent talking and reading. I’ve never been much of a TV watcher anyhow so I was just as happy not to have the TV. The only thing I do enjoy with DirectTV is the radio. For the most part I’ve been using Jenia’s laptop for music.

So today is my do nothing day.

This morning I spent a lovely hour or more getting caught up with Judi’s blog,Beauty and Bread: Views from the Range of Light. Judi has been my friend for more than 40 years so we have spent some fun, crazy and just great times together. Among her many talents is that she is a great writer and is actually a published writer. I spent the time this morning reading her blogs from mid-last year to her latest one. It was delightful to get caught up on all she has been doing and reading about her trips to Pakistan years ago.

One of the many things I will greatly miss with this transition to another part of the country , aside from the daily, or close to it, time with my daughter and family, will be the times I could jump on a train and be up in Fresno / Coaresgold to spent time with Judi. This past summer was fantastic cause we got to see a lot of each other and took some cool trips thru the Sierras and Tahoe. Now perhaps Judi will get a chance to come to the south and we can find some cool places to explore down here. As different and in some ways as similar as Judi and I are, she makes the best travel companion.

From reading her blogs, she has inspired me to become creative myself and write more in my blog. I do not put myself in a category anywhere close to Judi’s skills in writing, but I do enjoy put fingers to the keyboard and telling some tales. Now that I actually have some things to talk about, it will be fun to do some more blogging.

My other subject in this blog is weather. I’m in the SOUTH for goodness sake and it’s supposed to be warm. Ever since I got here on the evening of December 28,2009, it’s been C O L D. Of course for my still thin-blooded skin of southern California, anything under 55 degree Farenheight is cold for me. Yeah, Colorado can get cold but there is virtually no humidity up there and unless the wind is blowing, you don’t feel the cold. Here it goes thru my bones and I’m chilled all the time. We have the house temp sitting at 70 degrees and I’m wearing a sweatshirt over my long sleeve shirt. And now I’m hearing on the radio that we are due for some colder (did I actually here the announcer say it could get down to 20 tonite) and nastier weather tonite and tomorrow. Of course I’m probably going to bitch and complain when the humidity gets here in the summer and I’m dying of the heat. Maybe that’s why I’ve lived in So Cal for all these years.