Exciting News!

Yes: it's just barely still light out at 5pm when I leave work these days!

It's kind of nice. Waking up in the dark, and then having it be already dark by the time I leave the office, just makes me feel I spend the whole day doing work stuff.

Then I have to come home and go straight to bed, because it's not as if we have artificial illumination or anything. I mean, not good illumination.

Sure, we could try to mend our socks by the guttering light of our single tallow candle if we wanted, but what's the point? It's easier to fold down the neck over the heel to make a new spot to wear out. (No, I'm not giving up on this idea.)

Anyway, now that there are some traces of light left at the end of the day, I can foresee the time when we'll be able to actually remain active in the evenings. It's gonna be awesome.

Open Windows

Oh, hey, crickets.

That's a soothing late-summer-evening sound.

And because I'm comfortably indoors, the other insect noise that frequently accompanies a late-summer evening, a mosquito whining around my ears, is gloriously absent.

Indoors is nice.

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Happy Summer!

Or winter, if you're in the southern hemisphere. Does anyone in the southern hemisphere read this blog? I'm going to say yes, lots, because I can.

Lots, and none at all!

I am also on vacation now, so I am extra extra happy. Celebrate with me! Wheeeeee!

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Spring is Here!

Today I observed one of those signs of spring that doesn't get lauded in many poems.

That is, it was raining, making puddles on the sidewalk, and there were drowning earthworms in the water.

In the winter, when the ground is cold and frozen, you don't see them, but once it warms up the water drives them to the surface, where they get trapped in puddles on the sidewalk. You see them squirming around, or later just floating in limp, soggy tubes.

I try to fish them out if I see them still moving. Worms are good for the ground, and also I'm such a nice character.

If they're already dead, though, I just loot the corpses.

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Happy Solstice!

Summer is here. (In the northern hemisphere.)

I can tell, because I'm hot and sticky. Also, that day we just had in the northern hemisphere sure was long, right?

See, I have this idea that for the winter solstice I should light a lot of torches and feast and set things on fire and stay up all night to cheer for the return of the sun after the long darkness. You know, good old fashioned fun.

But what should I do for the summer solstice? Fan myself and have a cool martini? Celebrate shade trees?

It always feels as if there's more need to celebrate in the winter. You need something to perk up your spirits.

In the summer, you're already warm and comfortable, it's light out late, there's not the same urgency to find something to be cheerful about. Plus, if you're me, you don't have the energy to jump up and party anyway. It's too hot to move around unnecessarily.

Can we celebrate languidly, while reclining? I say yes.

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Or We Could Just Stay Home

Now that it's plenty snowy and slushy and the Boston winter is well underway, I can be especially interested in the idea of snow management on roads. Having travelled to Finland in the winter, Ian Sacs at Planetizen (via Tom Vanderbilt at How We Drive) tells us that,

It seems that aside from limited access highways and some primary arterials, the Finnish standard for snow tretment is to plow to a reasonable depth, but not worry too much about an inch or two of snow base layer covering streets.

He reports that drivers handle these snow-covered streets by going very slowly and carefully, and wonders whether slow, cautious driving over half-cleared streets might not make more sense, in some ways, than continuing to drive as if the streets were dry all year round when they may actually be slick enough to make this dangerous.

I think it would be pretty hard to convince people in the U.S. that taking the kind of time required to drive slowly and carefully on the way to work everyday would be a reasonable trade-off for much of anything (we need to get places, darn it!)

I might favor this plan, though, if it meant I could just hole up and sleep all winter!

But alas, that never works out as well as it seems like it would. You have to get food, after all. At least until we learn to hibernate properly.

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Solstice Darkness

Sunset, before the longest night of the year.

Time to huddle in our lairs and await the return of the light.

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Solstice at Last

The days will start getting longer! More light! We're not condemned to freeze forever!

I was getting worried, what with the snow and the waking up in darkness every morning and walking home in darkness every night. 

I know, it will be a while before I actually notice a difference. But it'll happen. I have fair confidence in the ecliptic.