MyTunes Monday: Dance of the Knights (Sergei Prokofiev)

I've listened to this SOOOO many times in the last few days that it's ridiculous. Watching live (or live-ish) classical performances never gets old, especially when the musicians are very animated like that one violinist (trust me, you know which one I'm talking about...he's also kinda cute).

Happy Valentine's Day

The Scene at the Store

There is a major snow storm headed to my neck of the woods. In fact, as I’m typing this, the flakes are falling and have been for about an hour. It started accumulating immediately. I was mostly prepared but there were just a couple of things I wanted to get while the getting was good so I trotted off to the store.

Mad. House.

It wasn’t frantic, but there were hoards of people there. Completely understandable. There things that I found laughable and things that I found downright perplexing. I jokingly made a Facebook status a few days ago about getting prepared by making sure I had wine (and yes, I do have the wine, as well as some bourbon because…reasons). However, there were lots of people buying alcohol. The guy in front of me in the queue had two cases of beer.

On the other hand, there were people buying frozen food. Lots of frozen food. That guy who was in front of me had three frozen pizzas. Keep in mind that the forecast has my area getting 10 inches of snow give or take. It may also be a rather wet and heavy snow, so power outages are not beyond reason. What exactly do these people think they’re going to do with these frozen foods, because preparing them would be out of the question?

And of course the bread aisle was absolutely ravaged and there was no such thing as a short line. That was particularly annoying given that I was waiting with just two items.

I wish I had thought to bring my camera with me on this trip to the grocery store (it didn't occur to me until I was halfway there) because it was definitely worth a few pictures.

BELATED UPDATE: As I said, about 10 inches were in the forecast. It ended up being 24 inches officially. Outside my door was 19 inches.

Wayward Weatherman

This was supposed to have been posted two weeks ago but...things. With another storm on the horizon, it seemed to be pertinent.

Somewhere around grade three or four, I became obsessed with weather. Seriously, while boys were getting into sports, I was watching The Weather Channel nonstop. Almost everything I learned about weather I learned then. I would watch the clouds and try to predict the weather. I drew tons of weather maps. I read tons of books on weather. I even kept track of hurricane season year in and year out. This stuff came in handy. In June when I was in grade four, I was in my grandmothers room and the weather started to turn really bad. I looked out the window and up and saw a funnel cloud. Immediately I started running towards the basement. Unfortunately I (and my mother and grandmother) didn’t get very far before…let’s just say it seemed like a bomb went off. We did make it the basement shortly thereafter. Whatever it was - a tornado, microburst, or something else - it didn’t last long, but it did take out a tree in the backyard (luckily it fell so that it missed the house, otherwise…yikes). Years later, my dad would be surprised that I didn’t major in meteorology (that would have required me taking more chemistry which…no).

I was pretty much always on top of the weather. I was always prepared. The faces on TWC were very familiar, almost like old friends (damn, that sounds pathetic).

Meanwhile yesterday, it started snowing. I didn’t know that would happen. It kept snowing and started accumulating. That was a shock. At around 8:30pm, there were maybe 2 inches on the ground. I did NOT see this coming. The day before started out surprisingly warm when I rode my bike into work. Six hours later when I left (keep in mind the Sun was still fairly high in the sky), it was frigid. The temperature had dropped 20 degrees. It turns out that the morning warmth that got me to work was the high of the day.

Somewhere along the road, one of my primary interests fell by the wayside and I’m very out-of-touch with the weather. It’s strange sometimes to think back on the things that interested us when we were younger only to realize that as the years pass, those interests change, sometimes without us noticing until it is brought into specific relief by a jolting event. That makes me wonder what - ten years from know - I will have left in my past, and what I will have picked up in its stead.

Olympic Disappointment

Normally I really look forward to the Olympics with excitement. However, with the opening ceremonies mere hours away, I find myself really disappointed.

As you should know by now, the Games are in Sochi, Russia. Russia last year passed a bunch of anti-gay laws that make the country quite dangerous for gay people and LGBT allies. Free speech and freedom of association have gone out of the window there. This, however, is old news (yet still sad of course).

Pretty much every story I’ve heard about the conditions in Sochi are terrible. There are stories about stray dogs being rounded up and systematically euthanized. It sounds like a canine Holocaust. Also, the hotels are in terrible condition. People who worked on building the venues, many of whom are Uzbeki people driven into Russia, have not been paid. This depressing list goes on and on, and it has taken away most of my usual enthusiasm for the Games this year.

I will say that there is one part of this Games that I’m still looking forward to: the Ice Dance event. I’m really hoping that Meryl Davis and Charlie White win the gold. They’re the reigning silver medalists (the reigning gold medalists will be competing too), they’re the reigning world champions, the reigning Grand Prix champions, they’re undefeated this season. They have put together some really great programs and I love their skating to bits. My one wish for the outcomes of these Games is that they bring home the gold. I’m far too invested in this for my own good. I’ll leave you with the programs they’ll be bringing to the Olympics (these performances are from U.S. Nationals, which they also won.

Short Dance:

Free Dance:

Other than this, I'm pretty much checked out of these Winter Games. Call me again in 2018.

MyTunes Monday: Once Upon A Dream (Lana Del Rey)

So beautifully dark.