Please allow me to interject my feelings about Mother Nature

We have a small sunroom that juts out from the kitchen on the west side of our house. It's exposed on three sides and has a large crawl space under it. Using my handy dandy laser thermometer, I discovered the tile floor there is currently 42 degrees.

 

Yeah, my son lives in Helena. Great area to live and visit in summer and fall … but this past weekend the high temperatures were in the negative-20 range. Brutal.

 

Tito's ... an acronym meaning "It's Only 15 Degrees Outside So Fuck It" ...

 

Rain and sleet finally moving into this part of Mississippi, followed by about 48 hours of freezing temperatures, maybe 6-8 hours above freezing, and then another 12 hours of freezing temps. Schools are closed tomorrow, probably won't be open Wednesday, and I wouldn't be completely shocked if they're closed Thursday just to let everything melt and drain.
Roads are getting nasty. Got the one-lane groove going on most of the interstate and a tractor trailer spread across part of it at one exit. Glad I can work from home. Hate it for our carriers.

 

Remember I said it was cold and everything was sheer ice in Microville? This morning Mrs. Micro is out walking the dog, slips, breaks her ankle. Surgery on Tuesday to install a plate and screws, 3-4 months of recovery.

This shit sucks and it's not supposed to go away until Wednesday. The city's approach to snow removal is, "Wait until it warms up or rains."

 

That sucks. Tell her that her husband’s friends on that weird internet site where he wastes all his time wish her a quick recovery.

 

Our house is less than 25 years old, but it was built at a time anyone who could hold a hammer could get a job in construction. Among the resulting joys is that when temperatures go really low - like 10 degrees and lower - the washing machine discharge line will freeze. When it freezes, water backs up and then floods our laundry room (which is on our ground floor).

We put up with the flooding in the laundry room floor for a couple of winters before we cut the dry wall to investigate. Sure enough, beneath the P trap in the discharge pipes, there was no insulation - just several inches of empty space between the P trap and the base of the framing. I shoved some insulation in there, and we thought we were good. Since then, we hadn't had any freezing or flooding.

This weekend, temperatures got below zero before rising to about 20 the next day. On Sunday, seven days after we (meaning my wife and daughter) had last done laundry, my wife put a load in. Sure enough, flooding.

I assume if we did laundry more than one day a week, the likelihood of freezing might decrease. Still, I think better construction would have prevented this issue from happening at all.

 

I worked with someone who broke a wrist falling on ice. Mid-air is a vulnerable place for a gravitational being, to be in. I wish a speedy convalescence.