It’s unnatural!  The big snowstorm on xmas eve was weird enough down south, but last night it got down to like 11°.  Everything remained frozen, with long icicles hanging from things.  These photos were after the sun finally came out and brought temps up into the 20s!  At least we got to keep our power so far, unlike many people in the area.  And just last week it reached almost 60°, and may do so again this week.  If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is.  Still, it’s even prettier for being so unusual and rare.

Less pretty and rare are the snowballing COVID cases overwhelming hospitals and medical staffers all over the country, especially here in TN.  Most of us now know someone who is sick or worse, or suffering extreme deprivation caused by the effects of this crisis.  I know the isolation this time of year is hard on people, but please continue to quarantine and take precautions and stay home.  It’s vital for all of our survival and wellbeing, so we can live to enjoy a better new year with loved ones.

So that was freakish.  It’s as if a normal Northeastern white xmas came down south to TN, including the deep freeze.  Overnight we got a couple of inches or more of snow, and it’s still intermittently coming down.  This is not normal.  I still recall the xmas we were all outside in t-shirts in 70° weather.  Now we’re snowed in, which is fine.  On top of that, my son and others got power outages, but fortunately not for long in these frigid temps.

Still, it’s pretty, almost spooky, and the timing was fortuitous.  Here are some night and day scenes.

It’s more of a wet than white xmas for now, but even down here they’re threatening an inch or so of some wintry mix, and plummeting freezing temps.  All the more reason to stay home!!  As if we needed one.

We’re some of the fortunate ones to have a home and the means to pay for it, unlike millions of Americans being screwed by our Scrooge-in-chief on his way out.  I doubt even scary ghosts in chains could reach his black hole of a soul.  May he and his fellow degenerates be brought to justice, or at least haunted by their crimes, in the coming year and beyond.

Tennessee has more cases, deaths, and overwhelmed healthcare workers per capita than anywhere on earth, not just the country, right now.  All because of republican indifference and incompetence.  Don’t even think about having a heart attack or other emergency, or getting admitted to an ICU.  They don’t even have room for all the COVID cases caused by people traveling, socializing, and not taking precautions.  It’s a high price to pay for self-indulgence.

But we’re still here, hunkered down and trying to stay as festive as one can in isolation.  Here are scenes.  Happy Whatever you celebrate.  Please stay safe and considerate and alive.

Today was the last warm day for a while, as a serious winter storm is moving in.  We may actually see some snow here on xmas eve.  I used the opportunity to try out our little electric rototiller to cultivate the main and annex veg beds.  It took some exertion, but I’m done with my list of major projects for the winter.  Time to hibernate.

Here are: this morning’s vivid sunrise, and the tilled gardens.

I’m all for frontline medical leaders and healthcare workers getting this vaccine ASAP, and I totally get medical “celebs” like Dr. Fauci and state officials getting vaccinated publicly by the NIH  to reassure the public that it’s safe and effective.  It’s a momentous occasion.

I just found it humorous to watch them on TV lining up, making their little speech, bravely getting shot up, receiving applause, then forgetting their documents and running back to get them!  Let’s Play Celebrity Vaccine!  Maybe they should tell repubs it’s morphine, so they won’t be so skeptical!   Whatever it takes.

It was nice out today, in the 50s, so I dug up the compost pile and dumped it on the veg garden, and threw manure/compost on the “veg annex”.  Tomorrow it’s supposed to be ~60º (!), so I’ll try out our new electric rototiller.

Here is a pleasant drink I made up with gin, a touch of açaí liqueur, and a lime slice.

And here are some signs of life on this winter day.  I included the one with just green leaves, because there might have been one or two kale plants there, and they somehow multiplied into a solid ground cover, still green in December.  Nature is always surprising me.

The good news is, the days start getting longer after today.  That’s one small ray of light at the end of a black wormhole of unnecessary deaths resulting from heedless, reckless behavior.

Millions of Americans are choosing to ignore the skyrocketing cases and death toll, in order to travel and congregate as usual at this worst possible time.  Hospitals and makeshift morgues are overloaded beyond capacity.  Apparently we don’t want to live or let our loved ones live to see another spring or each other again.

Maybe Nature got tired of being assaulted and ravaged, and went all Darwinian on our ass, letting us go ahead and reduce our own overpopulation of unfit, stupid DNA.  Unfortunately, sometimes it takes something this drastic to get our attention.  If it does.

Sorry to be so morbid, but this is real, not a game.  I too would like to see loved ones before I die, and see people get back to their lives.  I realize some folks don’t have much choice or access to adequate precautions, but those who do need to exercise good judgment and patience, for everyone’s sake.  We’ve done it before in our history of wars, plagues, depressions, and terrorism, and we can do it now.

And now back to some sunrise scenes on this first of winter.

Today’s not-so-trivial trivia: Tennessee now has the severest outbreak rate and highest risk of COVID per capita, and rising, a dubious achievement.  No surprise there, given the lack of concern of leaders and citizens alike with science reality here, but all the more disturbing.  It’s “herd mentality” at its worst.

Right now TN has over 8,000 new cases per day, for a total of over 503,000 so far.  We have 80 new deaths per day, for a total of almost 6,000 so far.  For a less populous state, that’s extremely high.  It means you probably know at least one loved one or friend who is dying or dead by now.  It has to hit close to home and personally before some people take this seriously, when it’s too late.

PLEASE STAY HOME if at all possible, and continue to take all precautions.  Do not get complacent or fatalistic.  When the vaccines become available to your risk tier, for most of us in 2021, get them!  They are authorized, safe, and our best shot [pun intended] at beating this dangerous virus.  Only when the majority of people are vaccinated properly will herd immunity start to kick in, and some normality return.

Sorry about the somber PSA, but this virus is no joke.  Our response does make a difference.

In more whimsical news, here is Misu’s entertaining squirrel-o-vision.  The squirrels just ignore her.

It’s one thing for your average nobody like me to hunker down and go dormant as winter during a pandemic closes in, the only sensible response IMHO, but not appropriate at all for our psychopath-in-chief to sulk and seethe in his bunker like a big baby, while our country is under attack, whether it be cyber, viral, or from economic distress.

As if that were not enough, our legit Pres.-elect Biden has to dodge repub. obstructions at every turn just to proceed with the routine transition of power.  It’s reprehensible.  I hope trump gets slammed with every criminal/civil conviction he deserves, and all his groveling sycophants with him.

Here’s a cold view from the warmer side of my window, and some herbs under grow lights, under which (not shown) is the very sensible Misu sleeping in her window bed.

Happy last day of Chanukah.  It was one bright week in an otherwise bleak year.  Here are last night’s eight lights burning down, a normal erev Shabbat table, and sautéd fresh veggies Italian style.

It’s cold outside, but without the photo appeal of a monster blizzard like the one up north.  Which is fine with me; the novelty of being frozen without power wears off after a few decades of it.  One of the few saner aspects of the south is winter, merely an interlude between summers, when you plan your spring plantings.

Since nobody knows what the hell dreidel game rules are supposed to be, and they never work anyway, I’m always inventing my own.

Here’s my latest: Magic 8-Ball Dreidel.  It took me all of Chanukah to come up with this obvious function of a dreidel.  You ask the Magic Dreidel something, say, a political forecast question, spin, and it uncannily predicts the future!

Here are sample rules:  Gimel=Yes, Nun=No, Shin=Shit happens, and Heh=How the hell should I know?  I say sample, because the rules are constantly changing.  You can make up your own, as one does.  Try it, it works!

Speaking of miracles, the COVID vaccines are science, but the fact that scientists could develop and start distributing some this fast, despite all the obstructions by trump and cronies, seems like a fitting Chanukah miracle, in my humble opinion.

Isolating may have dampened the festive spirit a bit, but couldn’t snuff it out completely.  That’s the beauty of a minor historical holiday like Chanukah–it’s meant to be enjoyed quietly at home, with family if possible, not turned into a commercial feeding frenzy of stampeding zombies.  It’s a simple, uncomplicated commemoration, without all the unrealistic expectations and letdowns.  So it’s sad when it ends, but it’s not the exhausting expensive ordeal we see all around us.

Here are last night’s seven lights, and tonight’s eight.  Happy last lights of Chanukah 2020!