The Seasonal Pause

Tonight's the night! 

Put on the socks, wrap a quilt around my head and shoulders, wrap my hands around a hot cuppa (for me, coffee) and sit on the porch.

It rained today, so the light is shimmering.

The lowering temperature has the air smelling so clean.

The clean smell of falling leaves and fading greens; of pollen-heavy goldenrod and foxtails, and all those plants. 

of long darkened evenings and darkening days and long nights ahead when warmth is the best aroma and even in our electric or gas or other technology age, the scent of warmth calls to mind woodfires and cooked food and family.

Too soon the coming cold will be tiresome. The wet, dark evening will be an annoyance.

We'll be over it.

the plants will die, the greens will brown, and the trees will be bare.

But for now, for tonight, we can enjoy the changes in the air. We can cherish the passing of the seasons. We can await the coming hours of darkness knowing that, one way or another, the light will come again.

Eventually.

And the cuppa warms the hands, the nose, and the heart as surely as the socks and quilts warm the body

Is "Snow Emergency" Legally Valid?

We're in the grip of our first snow emergency of the 2013-2014 winter. Winter Storm Cleon. With Dion already following closely.

Now, this isn't about what makes a snow emergency in any specific place. Minnesota and North Dakota would probably laugh at what Cincinnati calls an emergency.Maybe even at what they would call a significant snowfall.

But, the fact is, Cincinnati communities are calling snow emergencies of various levels.

Big whooping deal. It means, for the most part, that communities can write tickets and write off damage to cars parked on the streets.

They say not to go out unless absolutely necessary.
But who decides what is necessary?

I can tell you who does NOT decide.
Service industry workers. They have to go to work or lose their jobs.
The owners of various businesses don't care much if the police say don't go out.
The police don't care much, either. If you are driving slowly and carefully, they aren't likely to chase you down and possibly cause an accident, as well as keeping you both out when you could be getting in somewhere.
But the gas stations HAVE to stay open.
McDonald's MUST stay open.
Facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes, by their very nature, need to stay open. But must they insist on workers coming in in a "snow emergency"?
(I don't know what they could do instead. They should work up snow emergency protocols. Reduced staff, maybe sleep-breaks for people who will remain instead of go out I believe some hospitals do do that.)

Not only do these businesses insist on insisting, they punish those who don't risk life and limb to serve coffee to idiots. (Road personnel excepted from this category.) They write them up(disciplinary action); they brand them as unreliable; they reduce their hours; they even fire them.
They do not pay the fines for tickets received.
They do not pay for damages caused by an accident when their employees should never have been on the road in the first place.
They do not compensate for extra gas burned in longer, slower drives.
They don't pay hospital bills for slip and slide crashes.
They do NOT pay for funerals.

It's not just the service industry. There are factories with this same mindset. Never mind that their product is nonessential -- they have quotas that must be met, come hell or high water. (Hell or high snowdrifts?) The work must be done.

No mere employee can protest any of these disciplinary actions by pleading a snow emergency. The designation has no standing in labor law.

So, a "Snow Emergency" is a money maker for the municipality.
A "Snow Emergency" is an out for insurance companies, who will not pay (easily) for an accident caused when the driver wasn't supposed to be driving.
A "Snow Emergency" is no reason to not go out; thus says American Industry.

So, I ask you, why bother.
Why bother?

Welcome the Weather, Whatever it is.

Finally, a break in the weather. Like all good things, it didn't come without a price. Parts of our northern 'Border Country' was torn apart with severe storms. Lots of wind damages, lots of uprooted trees, property damage. This was all in a part of the country where this type of storm is a little unusual.

But, oh the pay off! Lower humidity, softer air. And, the rest of us are beginning to feel that same relief, as if our weather-break is trailing in the skirts of theirs.

Today, here in Winchester, Ohio, it has been raining all day. Nice, gentle, cleansing, healing rain. There are flash flood watches and occasional storm warning, but for the most part our transition has been fairly nonviolent.
That's a good way to be.

The heat and humidity will return. It's still July, and there's August to be lived through, and the first few days after Labor Day. It would be odd to not have a week or so of hot-and-humid after back-to-school and Back-to-school -after-the-first-holiday.

I like the rain.
If Hailey were here, she'd be liking the rain.
She'd even be allowed to go out in this rain. Pappaw doesn't let her out when it's storming. She doesn't like that.

People are always complaining about the weather. If it's raining, they want sun. When the sun is shining, it's too hot. When it's hot they want cold. When it's cold they want snow. When it snows they want the roads cleared and cleaned and wish for the hot and humid summer.

We'd change things if we could, and once we have it, we start wishing it was what it was earlier (in the year, season, month, week, day).
We need to take the time to enjoy the weather we have while we have it. It's going to change soon enough, and we are very lucky if it changes without upheaval and terror.
Let's be happy with what we get.
After all, it could just -- blow away.

I'm as bad as others. We all are. We all think we wish for prescribed weather, for perfect weather. The problem with that is --

We can't even agree on perfect weather!

Some DO like it hot!