The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Portents & Plans on a Friday Night

We've made it to another weekend, for those of us whose work schedules make that something to be reached. Sure, it's a sand castle refuge, but solid and secure enough from Friday night through Saturday. Sunday's when the tide starts to come in.

Well-wishes to Abbygal, who's down with some awful cold this weekend. Crypt Leak's keeping her soothed with Alka Seltzer Cold Formula and pizza, so she's expected to pull through. This spares me having to do the necessary clean-up out in the living room this weekend, as they're giving me a china cabinet and we were originally going to do that this Sunday. Next weekend's much better, or at least that's how it seems now. I'll probably still be as lazy and/or tired next weekend, but from here is seems a marvelous plan.

Last night I decided to fill up the van's tank when I saw that the gas station up the hill from us was still selling gas for $2.43/gallon when every other station I'd passed on the way home was at $2.47 or higher.

Today that same station is up to $2.51. Whee.

Saturday we'll be heading back down the PA Turnpike to visit my wife's parents, and I'm going to work in a visit with my mom, too while we're back there. My wife's grandmother died the Sunday before last, and due to a medical procedure we couldn't put off we missed the funeral. The situation re-emphasized how time slips away and how so many visits are put off until it's too late for anything but regret. So... some time for that this weekend. Besides, it'll be the first time my wife's gotten out of here in the past few months that wasn't a trip to see doctors.

Meanwhile, I've been hitting little but trivia on this blog recently while still reading and listening to news from around the world. There's just so much going on it's difficult to choose.

The recent report here and here concerning the unexpected thawing of a frozen peat bog in Siberia - an area as large as France and Germany combined - appears poised to inject a staggering amount of methane into the atmosphere. With methane being 20 times the greenhouse gas (trapping heat in the atmosphere) than carbon dioxide is, and billions of tons of it estimated in that landscape, the story's intimidating coming and going. Coming, the thaw's been something happening over just the past few years, leaving many scientists to wonder at the speed of apparent global warming up to this point. Going, many are seeing this change as a "tipping point" in the environmental change, as the release of these gases is almost certain to accelerate the warming that's precipitating the change.

Maybe saving up to buy a new homestead up in Alaska might not be a terrible idea. That could be plum real estate for the grandkids.

On a much shorter and brighter timeline, though, I'm hoping for a great deal of activity on these auctions between now and the time they close Sunday night. (Yes! It's a goddamned commercial!)

Much to do tonight, so I'd best be doing it.