As I write this report, I am anxiously awaiting the repercussions of the latest thaw up here in Burk’s Falls. Presently, the wind is gusting to 70 Km/hr., the trees are swaying furiously, and I just came back from our new, ALMOST finished, house to make sure the protective tarps have held. When there is an extreme thaw, such as the one we are now experiencing, the basement in our temporary rental bungalow floods. If we lose power, which usually happens when we get winds like this, then the flooding becomes a bigger problem. I will not bore you with the latest tribulations involving the severely delayed completion of this house, but let it suffice to say we are at our wits end. The only thing keeping Shauna and I from lunging at each other like a couple of territorial wolves, apart from the fact that we have to consider Jasper’s mental health, is the mutual understanding that many of these problems are simply out of our control. We are hopeful that all of this will soon get better.
The weather has once again been very strange. In the past week, we have had a myriad of extremes, ranging from extremely mild to bitter cold. With all the freezing and thawing, roads up here are often reduced to glare ice, and the conditions change hourly. Last night it rained, but today the mercury has once again plunged, and the snow has begun to blow in a driving, horizontal pattern. Certainly March came in with a roar, and I’m guessing those groundhogs are once again lying vermin. Every year, it’s the same story … I listen to that drug-addled albino groundhog, “Wiarton Willie” (our debauched, Canadian version of “Punxatawny Phil”) and every year, the little bastard is off by about three weeks. Frankly, if I lived in Wiarton, I too would probably drink heavily and try to be optimistic about winter's end. I could likely get a better read from my brilliant nephew the meteorologist, but what fun would that be?
I have never owned a DVD player before, although my computer is equipped with one. I kept thinking that, when the technology was a little more affordable, I’d buy a recordable DVD player. Now that DVDs are soon to be and obsolete technology, I found a recordable player for $59.00 at the fell-off-the-back-of-the-truck-our-prices-are-insane-keep-your-receipt-because-this-puppy-is-re-conditioned-so-we-will-replace-it-for-ten-days-if-as-we-know-it-will-it-craps-out local discount electronics store. Of course, the first one did break, but the second one seems to be a keeper. Now I can convert all my priceless videos to DVD. There is, of course, Nixon’s funeral, complete with Bob Dole crying (one of Shauna’s greatest hits) and the very first episode of “Big Brother”, destined to be a collector's item. Now, if and when the rest of my life settles down (hardy har har) , I will have plenty of material to convert, just in time for DVD players to become obsolete.
Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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