I guess Mom wins the "First Snow" Sighting contest! Apparently my mother and siblings have had this on-going competition to be the first to see snow and notify the others of the sighting. Our eldest sibling married a man from Pennsylvania and she is the most frequent winner of the contest, but not this year. I was not even aware that this competition existed between my family members. And why would I? I've been in Southern California for the last 30+ years. What are the chances that I would have ever won? It is still snowing as I type but the flakes are very small and I don't expect it to amount to much, but a win is a win! Congratulations Mom! (PS We ended up with about 1/8" of snow that actually stuck on the deck.)
I have the wire down for Buddy's invisible fence, the wire is into the garage, and the transmitter is up and working. Maureen is talking about planting a garden in the spring. After putting that wire in the ground I think we'd have more luck taking up brick making as a hobby. We definitely have the clay for it. About every 75 feet or so I had to stop and get the clay out of the dog line trencher I got from the equipment rental yard. I was not able to use gloves when unclogging the trencher and I could barely tip the trencher over because the gas would leak out of the tank onto the hot motor so I was working blind. My hands look like I just joined the Fight Club and had my first real bout. I hope Buddy appreciates what I do for him. Fairly soon he'll have the run of our acreage to chase squirrels and keep the cats off our property. Of course as cold as I expect it to be this winter I'm going to appreciate being able to just kick Buddy out the back door when he has to go out and not have to bundle myself up to walk him. I've started the training routine. I'm supposed to encourage Buddy back into the "Pet Area" when he gets close enough to the wire to set off the tone from his collar. The problem is I can't hear the collar when it goes off. I got down on my knees with him to see how close he had to be and Buddy thought I was trying to play with him and there went that session. The first evening I had the collar set to actually correct (shock) him Buddy panicked and would try to run away from me across the line. He did that every time. I was thinking this was going to take a while to get him to come back into his yard rather than cross the line and get stuck outside of the fenced area. But apparently Buddy is just as smart as I thought he was. He must have have thought about the sequence of events, hear the tone then get zapped, over night. The next day he had it figured out first time. As soon as he got close enough to the wire to hear the tone Buddy stopped dead in his tracks and almost backed out away from the wire. We are only a few days into a 15 day training plan and Buddy is already going out off lead and staying within the fenced area with no problem. Which is good because it's raining right now and I don't feel like going out in it to walk him. I've left the back door to the porch open for him for the last hour but it looks like Buddy doesn't want to venture outside into the rain either.
From my opening paragraph you might suspect;
"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!" Not so much. Except for my pencil tree and the wrapped packages next to the fireplace. That snow we had lasted less than a day and it has been warm and rainy ever since. Christmas day is projected to be about 71 degrees with 80% chance of precipitation, which at 71 degrees means rain not snow. I checked, California's daytime high is projected to be only 59 degrees on Christmas day. What's that all about? I was looking forward to my first cold and wintry Christmas in decades and it looks like I left it behind in California. Not to worry, I'm sure it's just an anomaly. I can't imagine it would become a trend.
I intend to take a small holiday break from my blogging. We have guests coming over for the Christmas holiday. Some neighbors we've met are coming over for Christmas dinner and one of my siblings and a displaced friend from California that I know from my AYSO days will be up the next day to tour the Biltmore and stomp around Asheville for the weekend. Then immediately after we are headed up to Cleveland to celebrate the New Year. I just wanted to take a moment to share with you how much Maureen, Liam and I appreciate and miss all of our friends. We all wish you'all the very best for this holiday season we hope you have the happiest New Year that you can remember.
Love to you all!
Rick, Maureen and Liam
PS I was going to wish for you all "slim bodies and fat bank accounts for the new year", but that's what I asked for myself from Santa last year and he got it backwards, so I'm not taking any chances this year.
There is a strange anomaly (for lack of a better term) regarding the freeway traffic in the Asheville/Weaverville, NC area during periods of road maintenance or construction. When a lane is closed for whatever reason signs are posted miles before the actual closure warning, "Merge Left, Right Lane Closed Ahead." The anomalous behavior of the local drivers is to immediately move over and queue up regardless of how far it is to the actual lane closure. I have seen this phenomenon a number of times and it's completely baffling to me. I mean normally a lane is open until it's not, right? You use both lanes on the freeway until you approach the row of barrels or cones that gradually encourages or forces you to merge into the remaining open lane? Drivers here move over well before you can even see the large flashing arrow pointing left which is still a mile before the lanes actually narrow. This next thing I'm about to describe really happened to me this past week, it was like the "Twilight Zone." So I'm tooling along northbound on I26 west when I come to one of those portable signs, "Merge Left, Right Lane Closed Ahead." And sure enough, traffic has lined up in the left lane even though the right lane is still open as far as the eye can see, so I keep on going. Someone properly ensconced in the left lane queue like you're supposed to be immediately upon seeing said sign, sees this brazen driver, me, continuing on in the right lane as if I had a right to be there. This driver took it upon herself to correct the situation, educate me, I don't know what was going through her mind, and pulled out into the right lane in front of me. Here's the "Twilight Zone" part. This driver continued on at the same pace that the left lane was moving, roughly 15 miles an hour, and stayed even with the opening she vacated in the left lane. We drove like that for about a half mile with the right freeway lane ahead of us completely vacant and our two pick-up trucks keeping pace with the left lane as if both lanes were full and backed up. And if that is not bizarre enough for you, the vehicle that was immediately behind her in the left lane stayed back and kept her space open the whole time she was over in the right lane. The pick-up driver ahead of me was clearly out of her comfort zone though, and after about a half mile she must have begun to worry that she would be stuck in the open lane with nothing in front of her forever and she moved back over into her reserved place in the left hand queue. And being the "Brazen" California trained driver that I am I took advantage and drove for the next two miles unobstructed past all of the lemmings, I'm sorry I mean "courteous drivers", until I got to the barrels forcing me to merge into the left lane and then went on about my business as if I knew what I was doing. I'll probably be the first "Road Rage" victim guilty of not cutting someone off because I was using an open unobstructed lane!
So how many of you noticed my reference to traveling northbound on I26 west? It is actually the "Future I26." At least that is what the signs say. Now between our college visits and home relocation scouting trips and our new residency here, I've been driving the "Future" I26 for about a year and a half so I'm not sure exactly when it becomes the "Present" I26. And all of the freeways around here are pulling at least double duty or more. The I26 is intermittently Highways 15, 17, 19, 23, 25, 70 and then sometimes it's mixed in with the I40 and I240 Freeways. And I've finally figured out roughly that the north bound highways are also the west bound interstates and conversely the south bound highways are the east bound interstates. So when you are traveling on the 19 North Highway you are also on the West Bound Future I26. Although if you are on the south side of Asheville it can be necessary to get on the East Bound I240 in order to be on the West Bound Future I26 going north. Look at the Asheville area on Google Maps. The Future I26 runs from Kingsport Tennessee almost directly south to Spartanburg South Carolina. But some highway engineer noticed that if you drew a vertical line down the map Spartanburg is slightly more to the east than Kingsport, so of course it makes perfect since to say the I26, I'm sorry the Future I26, runs east and west. I'm right aren't I, this is where Twilight Zone episodes come from? Anyway, if you decide to rent a car when you come to visit us, trust me, bring or rent a GPS, use it and just ignore the directional signs. We have been here since June and I'm just now figuring all of this out (which kind of concerns me that I could understand any logic that might be behind all of this).
Liam competed in his very first ever "Indoor Track Meet." It was also his very first ever 3000 Meter race. Liam finished second by 3/10ths of a second to an "Unattached" runner who might have been a high level club or professional runner. Either way Liam's time of 8:55.84 in his very first 3000M race was over :30 seconds faster than the third place finisher and fast enough to meet the minimum standard to qualify Liam to enter the Southern Conference Championships in February and be entered into the "fast heat" of that Championship. Liam is home for the Christmas break now. I think he loves being at school so I'm not so sure how happy he is to be here but it's nice to have him in our new home with Maureen and I. We'll see if I still feel that way a month from now at the end of his break.
Maureen has decorated our home inside for the Christmas holiday. Over the years we've collected decorations like everyone, but it's nice that the decorations fit so nicely in our new home. And it's also nice and warm to have familiar things all around us. My purview is the the outside of the home. And if you saw the lights I've managed to put up you would be completely underwhelmed. I like to have holiday decorations up on the house I just don't like to create work for myself. And don't forget, anything you take out and put up you eventually have to take down and put away. Of course the first thing I did was put up the plastic coated cup holders. I went out and bought two packages of the white, to match the trim, plastic coated metal screw in coffee cup hooks and laid them out across the front of the house. Now I can just loop the string of lights into the hooks and just as easily take the light strings down with little or no effort. I've done that with every house we've ever owned. The first year takes a little planning and work to get the hooks in place but after that it's easy-peasy! Although as pathetic as my poor house looks I'm going to have to add some lights up and down the gable end of my garage or something. Maybe a lighted wreath? The only saving grace is that a few of my closest neighbors don't have any lights outside at all.
I believe Maureen has also finished taking care of all of making up all of the Christmas cards. About a third of them go overseas to her family and our foreign friends, sons and daughters from our exchange student hosting days, their families and other friends we've made over the years. I'm not even going to mention how much it cost us to mail just the Christmas cards this year. As bad as I am at remembering birthdays and special occasions our adopted Aunt Shirley is the absolute best. She always has a gift bag made up for you on your special day regardless of what that day might be. However, she made it absolutely clear that she "does not mail gifts/packages!" Once we left California we were on our own as far as gifting occasions, and she meant for that to be both directions. Shirley, the next package you receive from us does not have a single thing for you or John. Please do not send it back without opening it!
I really was hoping for a "White Christmas" this year but my weather page has the daytime highs dipping below 50 degrees for only a couple of days between now and the end of December. Although I'm looking forward to a little snow that might be another one of those things that I'll reconsider after we actually have some.
We send our love and best holiday wishes to all of you. Have a great holiday season!
Rick, Maureen and Liam
