Saturday, 14 February, 2015 -( -15°C / +5°F & just a few early flakes dancing around in Atlantic Canada @ 11:10 pm )-
— I took Jassper le Boof – our too smart for our own good hundred and twenty five pound Labrador Retriever for a bit of a walk up the street at about 9 pm. It was a bit nippy. When we got about halfway up the shortish street we live on here, we noticed that the snow banks were piled up taller than me (I’m 6′ 3″ tall) and wondered how tall those walls will be after tomorrows projected monster storm. We got a break last week, after three or four major snow events in two weeks. I thought we got almost as much snow in those two weeks as we did in most of last winter. Maybe I didn’t count the April Fool’s Day blizzard in that. After all, April’s supposed to be in the springtime, right? Jassper is a handful. We took him to puppy school and we were doing fairly well with an almost well behaved, over-enthusiastic brute of a dog -but not quite as brutish as ‘Bear’ a Newfoundland dog maybe one and a half times Jassper’s size, who acted like he would bite Jassper’s head off if he tried to get too friendly without Bear initiating the friendliness, and Bear had a thing for a cute, comparatively little Cocker Spaniel and didn’t want Jassper to get any ideas about being friendly with her… But anyway. We had a ‘guest’ visit for a couple weeks that turned into a couple years and he blew most of Jassper’s training out the window. I spent 75% of our walk calling out, “Slow down- Take it easy!” “Easy!” “NO! Let’s not go there-” “No- Don’t even think about entering that little dog’s territory-” “Easy-” “NO- you don’t want to dig anything up there-” “No, you can’t eat that-” “Easy- Easy-” “Slow down-” And the second half of our walk was down hill and I had to constantly rein him in, hold him back and do my best not to slip on the hard packed snow and bits of ice- But we survived and enthusiastic to a fault perennial puppy got home and had a couple treats and went through his, “Okay- I’ll pretend it’s time for bed- I get another treat for that, right?” Routine, and he went into his crate, we closed the door, and pulled down the sheet that used to keep him safe and quiet all night, but now lasts maybe twenty minutes if we’re lucky. Then we dealt with two cats who keep trying to demand their evening routine a few minutes earlier every day-
— The first few snow flakes showed up on our ‘security’/deer cam at about 9:30. And it’s acting like the first few scouts from an incredibly massive army of invading snow people, zooming in, looking around, blowing off to check out the neighbourhood for choice locations to land and set up sites for mind blowing communities of intrusive snow flake beings.
— My co-editor in the blogged news world is already dealing with heavy snowfall in “Upper New York State” and we might skip our issue tonight- but we’ve been a bit sporadic lately due to ‘widespread flu outbreak’ red filled areas of the Map of the USA, and Both Cathi and I have been battered by something- be it a weird cold or flu or combination of the above-
— So I’ll look through the famous birthdays on February 14th and list a few below:
{ Today’s Birthdays : — You can find all this and more at http://www.historyorb.com/today/birthdays.php & They have a ‘Follow on Twitter’ link on their site.
February 14th: 1572- Hans Christoph Haiden, composer. 1818- Frederick Douglass, African-American abolitionist/lecturer/editor (exact year unknown). 1894- Jack Benny, [Benjamin Kubelski], Waukegan Ill, “Oh! Rochester!”. 1896- Arthur Milne [Edward Arthur Milne], Hull Yorkshire, English Astrophysicist (kinematic relativity). 1902 – Thelma Ritter, Brooklyn New York, American actress (Miracle on 34th Street). 1913 – James Pike, bishop (Beyond Anxiety), born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma & Jimmy Hoffa, Teamsters leader who disappeared in 1975 & Mel Allen, Birmingham Alabama, American sportscaster (voice of NY Yankees). 1916- Edward Platt, Staten Island NY, actor (Chief-Get Smart). 1921- Hugh Downs, Akron Oh, TV journalist (20/20, Concentration). 1922- Murray “the K” Kaufman, NYC DJ (5th Beatle). 1929 or 1931- Vic Morrow, American actor, Bronx NY, (Combat, Roots, Twilight Zone the Movie) (d. 1982). 1934- Florence Henderson, Dale Ind, actress/singer (Carol-Brady Bunch). 1943- Eric Anderson, vocalist (Avalanche, Be True to You), born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1944- Carl Bernstein, Washington Post investigative reporter (Watergate). 1945- Gregory Hines, actor/dancer (White Nights, Taps), born in NYC, New York. 1948- … Teller, Phila, magician (Penn & Teller). 1960- Meg Tilly, [Margaret], actress (Big Chill, Impulse), born in Los Angeles, California 1963- Zach Galligan, actor (Gremlins), born in NYC, New York. }
— && That’s more than I expected to write here tonight-
— Good Night, Sweet Dreams- Hope you had a wonderful Valentines’ Day —jim w—
