The Time Sink

I guess we'll file this one under the "Law of Unintended Consequences"... When you buy a pre-lit Christimas tree, sooner or later that sucker is going to have a light or two go out. ...and that's all well and good until you get a cat or three involved, or maybe have a broken bulb get tucked under a branch during decorating...

The upshot after several years of successful glows is that this was the year the tree gave up first one string and then another and finally the top string. I'd say the boys and I had something like six hours of light searching into it when I called a halt and just ran a couple of strings of reserve outdoor lights into the bare spots to hold us through the season. ...and then came Sunday.

We spent the entire length of both playoff games and "You're the One that I Want" clipping the little wires that the gnome at the tree shop had so patiently applied over the course of a year or two to keep all of the dead and un-dead strings of lights attached to the so very artificial branches of The Tree. ...and we'll spend some more time stringing lights on our prelit tree so it will be prelit for next year.

...but from the "Department of Very Intended Consequences"? If you ask for a panini press for Christmas and you show your young chef how to use one and what lovely goodies you can produce with just the simplest of ingredients what might be the results? Well, on a day when you feel like dreck and nothing much interests you in the way of food, you just might end up with a masterpiece of a roast beef and swiss on sourdough melt that truly is to die for...

Well, I'd planned to go into work today, but a night of coughing in the chair trashed that pretty thoroughly. I did get some sleep in the morning, enough so that by mid-afternoon I got online and on the phone and did some ordering for the office until I ran out of breath and brains (no comments needed, thankyouverymuch).

Sometimes enforced reading is what it takes to get through an evening or two. Two books have bitten the dust (reviews shortly over at Book Fetish) this week with maybe another to follow over the weekend.

I did make it into work today; orders needed to be made from inventory counts I had to check, so needs must regardless of how I felt. I just stayed as low key as possible so as not to drive up my fever from the cold/sinus/bronchitus blech...

Yes, that would be us you're see on the national news, the part where they zero in on central California and talk about days of sub-freezing weather destroying the citrus crops. Yep, yep, yep, we're right in the middle of the primary growing region here; some of those big wind machines are located just a half mile away from the house.

The trees will survive this one just as they've survived all the others over the years; the problem comes in when the fruit on the trees is exposed to temperatures under 26F for extended periods of time: if the fruit freezes, it becomes unsuitable for market. ...and since the growers 'store' the fruit on the trees, they're pretty much trapped; even if they could get enough workers in to pull it off there's no place to warehouse it.

Mother Fury commands and her minions simply obey, hence:

A meme's a meme for all that...

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Sunday

Good morning. Yes, it's still dark outside, but hey, that's how it goes. Shelley took a slip on the ice yesterday and ended up at the ED being evaluated for concussion syndrome. All is well at this point, other than her head and tail both hurt. ...and we're both a little wrung out.

Other news as events warrant...

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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