Which isn't such a bad thing.
I dig winter here- literally, as today I was helping a guy clear his driveway of snow. Thank goodness I picked up some mittens at Murdoch's beforehand. Sing your jolly stings the toes and bites the nose songs, but if your hands are frozen you can't do anything. I was looking for these gloves that Lars Hansen wears; they're a glove/mitten combo- when you need dexterity you peel off the mitten and voila- gloves. “And when it's twenty below you put the warmer packets in the little sleeve here,” said Lars. Yes, even the Norsk Berserker needs such accoutrements in this cold. I didn't find those but I think the tough, yellow-leather mittens I got will do fine. It's SW Montana, west of the continental divide, not Bozeman or points East. Central and Eastern Montanans scoff at 20 below. At 15 below they're putting shrimp on the barby and filling the kiddie pool.
At Murdoch’s there was this guy looking over the gloves and I asked, “Do any of these work at twenty-four below like it was yesterday?” He said “I don't know but I just got back from Bozeman and it was -35.” That's Fahrenheit, for you metric-system weenies, which converts to butt-cold Centigrade.
Anyway, why am I stranded? Well, Lukas and I were all set for a Christmas journey to the west, to spend ten days in Crazy Land. Lukas and I both have family in the Seattle area, so we loaded up Lukas' Explorer and set off on the 8-hour drive, which is pretty in the mountain parts but boring through the long Spokane to Ellensburg I-90 tundra stretch.
But wait, why do I say Crazy Land? Why am I so hard on Seattle? Why can't I be nice for once? It's Chrisssmassss!
Well, because the covid insanity is far from over in the Western Woke Belt (new-normal name for the I-5 corridor.)
Look at this. I showed you this picture before, but it’s still the welcome screen at Sunset Retirement Center.
They'll be at it still, come March, when we enter year four of the madness. The staff at my mom's retirement center down near Olympia has finally abandoned the mask; why can't they in Seattle? I guess because, since according to Fauci the pandemic is not over, we still have to take the proper precautions. To stop wearing the mask now would mean we didn’t need them to begin with, and that would be admitting that masking was wrong from the beginning; ‘progressive’ Seattlites would rather double down than admit fault.
On their Covid-19 warnings and updates section (always the first thing you see on corporate, woke websites), they let you know that visitors are now allowed, provided they go through screening at the door, they stay in the communal area only and don't enter the dining room or other facilities, and they wear a mask at all times. Norms of the New Normal: Fun city! The last line in their recommendations is a token blurb about how you'll be less likely to catch or pass on covid if you've had your jabs. This while my jabbed relatives are still getting covid.
Well, I'm not jabbed and I'm not going through the Protocols of Sunset just to get to the commons area where my pop and I will stare at each other, expressionless. (update: dad says screening at the door means making sure you’re jabbed- sigh)
Whatever, it's all a moot point now.
As we were leaving the house this morning, after freezing our buns loading the car, Lukas announced that his heater was on the fritz again. Almost completely kaput- just a wisp of warm air coming out the vent. There are train tracks you have to cross on the road out from our house. Lukas said, “twice now the air-conditioning has kicked back on after I went over these tracks, so let's see if it works this time.” He stepped on the gas and I held tighter to the door handle as we sped down the icy road in the dark. Gripping the door, I tried to guestimate how far I could walk in this cold and dark before freezing to death, in case of a spin-out and crash into a snow bank, or breakdown.
We flew over the railroad tracks, kawump! but the heater did not kick in. Soon we were heading north on 93 and my toes were frozen, I was blowing into my hands and ice was building up on the windshield, on the inside! You had to scrape the inside of the windshield to create a hole to see through. It was an easy call as we pulled into the gas station in Florence. We hadn't even made it to Missoula. It was 25 below and expected to get even colder, and we were going to cross at least two mountain passes without a heater to defrost the windows, not to mention our hands and toes. “Executive decision here Lukas. We're heading back.”
Like me, he had plans and promises to keep, but he didn't argue. His feet were frozen too; he was just being the stoic German until that point, but stoic or not, the 8 hour drive might have killed him and me. Sir Edmund and Tensing wouldn't have survived this drive!
So it's back to keeping the home-fires burning in the Bitterroot. We went back to pick up our chickens from Don and Veronica, and when we got home German Doris, our closest neighbor called us and said, “What are you guys doing back?” She felt bad that we had to cancel our trip to see family so she gave us a big pot of stew for dinner. That on top of the lunch we'd packed- lasagna and steaks that Doris had given us the day before. (More on wonderful Doris in a future post.)
It's a bummer none of my kids (non-covidians the lot of 'em) managed to free up their schedule in Japan to fly out here, and double-bummer I also won't see my family in Seattle (covidians one and all, but still beloved and dear to me), but I will not despair! Nikos Kazantzakis said something to the tune of, When misfortune comes, never despair. Hope and action are what's required. I will spend time with my Montana friends, who are like family to me (and most of them militantly non-covidian).
I feel super-fortunate to be here at Stan and Lucy's, house-sitting in the Bitterroot, even if I don't have a Christmas plan. My buddy Martin Brown back in Japan says, “Be happy you're over there. I just went to a mandolin and violin concert with 40 to 50 musicians. Two hour concert and all of them masked up for the duration.”
Holiday to do list:
catch up on reading.
meet friends
go to church. Will it be the Lutheran; the Baptist; the non-demoninational, easy-going church with the subdued band; or the non-demoninational, praise-the-Lord Hosannas charismatic church with the loud band; or maybe even the New Israel Saturday church- they always have quite a feast.
do some dips, pushups and try to manage a pull up.
make a 2nd inquiry at the places I've already put in my resume, including the temp agency that hasn't called (jeesh, labor is short and they're desperate and will hire meth-heads for crying out loud- are they googling me or something?)
get a CDL manual and bone up
start the no-phone retreat biz: I just did a kla.tv interview with Olle Johansson, on the dangers of ambient radiation. He said he’s heard about a new thing becoming popular, people taking vacations at places where smart phones are verboten. Lukas and I are thinking about opening up one such place for addicted kids.
plow snow
visit a gun store
Get ready for my next kla.tv interview- a big one
See, lots to do. Stay tuned!