Gorgeous day today.
Topic: Nature
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00:14 Monday, 17 March, 2003
Ithaca, NY


Gorgeous day today.

Today was the first real day of spring. We've had a couple of teasing thaws in January and February, as we do every year, but this is finally it. And what a way to announce its arrival! Now, mind you, this has been an *exceptional* winter. I don't know all of the statistics and stuff, but I know that there has been a consistent ground-cover of snow since November (totally rare for upstate New York), and that the temperature must have been at least 20?F below average. And I'm not exaggerating. We'll usually get some cold spells here and there, some below zero, but the temp. will always rebound to something more comfortable, like around 30. This winter we had at least three-weeks worth of days where the *high* for the day was only in the single digits. And the nights were just death. The funny thing about it all: we got used to it. After a week of 5-8? weather, a day at 22? felt like summer. And I totally loved it. I wish every winter could be like this. And the reason I say that is this: when you have the normal winters when you get snow, it melts a week later, the temperature hovers around 35?, it snows again, etc., it's still cold outside. Sure, it's not as cold, but it's certainly not what anyone would consider comfortable outside. Comfortable is something over 60?F. Anything less than that requires careful planning in terms of clothing, and is therefore not comfortable. If you need clothing to be comfortable, that means the air itself is not comfortable. That said, 25? is infinitely better than 35?. Since they're both uncomfortable, why not have a temperature at which snow is actually snow, instead of wet, soggy, slush that just gets you soaked if you touch it, and melts away so that you can't use it for much? We got a decent amount of snow this year, probably nothing spectacular, but the amazing thing about it is that the *temperature* made it stay around forever and not melt. And, suddenly, all of these people came out of the woodworks to go play in the snow. Snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, ice-climbing -- all of these sports require consistent, below-freezing temperatures. And those that don't enjoy these things, that's fine, but this weather still doesn't adversely affect your lives. Regardless, you're going to be uncomfortable outside, so you may as well let the rest of us go play.

Anyway, the winter was fantastic. *Finally* a winter I could enjoy. I loved it. And it could keep going on for a while, and I'd be happy. But I've also had enough fun out of it that I'm quite happy for spring to arrive. Spring for me has always been that wet, uncomfortable time of year that tells me that our chances of snow (which normally have not been sufficient) are finally up, but that it's not time yet to be actually comfortable outside. Yes, there are nice days in spring, but in the North-east, spring typically means 45-55? days of rain, which is still not comfortable. Until summer hits, one cannot be consistently comfortable, and, as long as it keeps raining, one cannot cheerily go play outside. In the winter, days of precipitation can still be days of fun, because snow does not get one wet, it only covers things up. Until snow comes in contact with something that is above freezing, it remains a harmless solid. This is one of the wonderful things that I love about snow.

But about today.... We got two inches of snow three days ago, then another day of cold, then a day of border-line niceness, and then spring finally hit today, and I welcomed it with open arms, open windows, open doors. Right now, at midnight, it is 58?F outside. Incredible. It was 60-something this afternoon and perfect. A beautiful, warm breeze was blowing around, all the birds came out, and a lot of snow melted. Everybody I met was just glowing with the happiness that a well-deserved, sunny, warm day brings. We had a barbecue for dinner, and played Frisbee in the street (remember, there's still two feet of snow on the ground), and just basked in the warmth. This has to be the happiest spring-arrival I've ever had in my life. Because it represents the end of something that I actually feel like I've enjoyed enough to do it honor. It's just like anything that you know has to end eventually: for me, the only reason to be sad about its ending is because I don't feel like I got as much out of it as I should have. But this winter I did, so I feel all right letting it go. And what a way for spring to come, too. :) :) :)


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Skiing with TwinkleToes.
Topic: Philosophy
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22:32 Thursday, March 13, 2003
Endwell, NY


Hola. Went to Hunter Mountain with TwinkleToes yesterday for (probably) my last chance to ski for the season. There's still tons of snow left to melt off of the slopes, but it's supposed to end up being in the fifties for a long time now, so it'll make the snow all mushy and not worth skiing on. Not that yesterday's snow was too great, but we had fun. She hadn't skied in a bazillion years, so I spent some time on the bunny slope with her, but she was doing fine, so we headed up the mountain. And as we approached the lift, I heard someone say, 'hey, we've still got 25 minutes -- plenty of time!' and I was like, 25 minutes? What time do the lifts close? 4pm, says the liftie. And we couldn't believe it. The sun was still shining our eyes, we'd only gotten there at 2pm (TwinkleToes is also quite distractible -- we got up at 08:30, but didn't leave till 11:00 because of hanging out with her step-mom, etc., and didn't realize it would take us two-and-a-half hours to get there), and it was almost time to leave again? I was totally amazed. I had hoped for lighted night-skiing, but, even if not, I knew there was daylight available until at least 6pm. But the blasted hours are set on the daylight available in December, which means they had to close at 4pm. :P Stupid ski places. So we rode to the top and separated, TwinkleToes going down something easy, and me zooming down the fastest trail I could find, so I could get a second run in. I did, so took the second run at a nice, leisurely pace, to kind of savour the moment. The snow was slushy, with some ice patches underneath, but, at like 43?F, the ice was very soft and not that dangerous. Anyway, we both had a great time, I was just very disappointed that I hadn't pushed to get out of the house earlier, and that, if we'd known when we got there at 2 that they were closing at 4, we didn't separate sooner to just ski alone at our respective difficulty levels.

So the rest of the visit with TwinkleToes was fantastic, with TONS of talking and plenty of cuddling. We both happen to be people who need more physical interaction than what is acceptable in American society, and people are always assuming we're dating because we're so touchy. But we just like being close with our friends that can appreciate that, and since we both do, we spend a lot of time cuddling. And we talked very openly about everything, and that was very nice and comfortable, since most people we know also don't like being that honest. So we had a lot of fun hanging out, and watched some DVD's with her brother. We watched X-Men Tuesday night and The Nightmare Before Christmas Wednesday night, neither of which had I ever seen, and both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. I like movies a lot, and love DVD's, so that's always a fun toy for me.

And, upon getting back, I was very excited to be able to IM with Thundercat for a while (thus the discrepancy in time between me starting this entry and actually posting it), and am now very tired, so am heading to bed. Buenos noches.


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Falling behind.
Topic: Personal
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23:39 Monday, 10 March, 2003
Ithaca, NY


Falling behind.

I'm too distractible. I keep meaning to write, but get caught up in an IM and runs until it's past time to go to bed, and just go straight to bed. I've also been working a lot on upgrading this site, by linking entries together, including lots of past writing in here, adding pictures. I'm sure it will finally all come in a burst. Anyway, I do promise to catch up. Hopefully with additional exciting news, as I plan to go skiing or rock-climbing (whichever people and weather permit) this week.


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Nature walk.
Topic: Nature
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22:32 Saturday, 08 March, 2003
Ithaca, NY


Thundercat is over to hang out again tonight. I picked her up and brought her back to my place, and as I was backing in, I caught furry movement in my review mirror, so had to look closer. Now, I must explain the set-up of my apartment building. It's two storeys, with two larger apartments downstairs, and four upstairs. So every one of the upstairs apartments has a corner-full of windows, and I got lucky enough to get the corner that faces south and west. I need lots of light. The parking lot is almost at the level of the top storey, so to get to the 'ground' floor, one must go down a set of outside stairs. And to get to the top floor, one walks up this mild ramp to the deck which surrounds the whole top storey. Kinda weird. And fun when it's icy. But, anyway, I'm seeing this furry critter running up the ramp behind the car, and, upon further inspection, exclaim to Thundercat that it's an opossum. As we're climbing out, I realize that that ramp is the only way on or off the top deck, and the opossum will be trapped when we go up. So I told Thundercat to go around one way, and I'd go the other, and see what the opossum would do when it was cornered. We were not trying to corner it in a mean way, mind you, just in a curious way. We figured it might try to play dead, which I'm told opossums do when they feel they're in danger. So we went around either side of the building, until the opossum knew that it was stuck between us, and then we just stood still to watch it. I huddled as close to the building as I could, and we watched it peek over the edge several times, intimidated by the ten-foot drop into the dark. Then it watched us for a little while, trying to figure out what we were up to, and it was all very serene and personal. I liked that moment. It was like our little nature walk for the night. Realizing its position, but apparently having decided that we were not dangerous, it hesitantly walked towards and past me on the deck, scurrying rather quickly once it was fully past me, the way you'd expect a nervous person to do when sneaking around somewhere. So we followed it back along the deck, and at the corner it considered climbing down, but decided that was too daunting, so continued around to the next corner. It was now on the last stretch of the deck to get it to the ramp, so if it had only turned the corner, it would have found the way down. But instead it decided it was fully trapped and would only end up going around in circles forever, so may as well try to climb now or never. It climbed over the edge, scratching its nails into the wood for traction, and using that rat-tail very effectively to hold the railing. Unfortunately, there was no post on the corner that reached the ground, so once it had gone down a foot and half, it was forced to turn upside-down onto the ceiling of the lower deck. Despite their resemblance to mice, opossums are not as agile, and this one quickly lost its grip and plopped down into the soggy grass ten feet below, squirmed to get upright, and scrambled into the bushes to hide. No harm done, but funny to watch. And so neat to see an animal that close. :)


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Friendly's with Thundercat.
Topic: Philosophy
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12:29 Friday, 07 March, 2003
Ithaca, NY


Met up with Thundercat after work yesterday for dinner at Friendly's. Actually, it was supposed to be Simeon's, for their free wine-tasting on Thursday nights, but when we called them we found that it ends at 7pm. We could have barely made that if we'd known to go straight there, but the sunset was spectacular out my window, so we decided to hang out and watch the sunset until it disappeared. So we ended up at Friendly's instead, but I certainly have no complaints about that. I *love* Friendly's. It's all about the quesadillas. And this is the first Friendly's I've been to in like five years that knew what I meant when I said I wanted 'combination' quesadillas. We were starving, so got the quesadillas as an appetizer, and then both got burgers. And, my God, those were big burgers. Enormous. Obviously, neither of us finished his burger, and we spent the next three hours complaining about how stuffed our tummies were. But it was worth it.


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