The dogs chose not to go out last night. Once I pushed the door open they each looked and backed into the kitchen. They are not dumb animals. This morning they had no choice. They peed in tandem then Henry ran a bit and Nala did her zoomies. Both are now sleeping on the couch. They are exhausted.

We have so much snow I will be hibernating. The spring robin and I will emerge when the world is warmer and the gardens have green shoots. My car is backed into the driveway and has been blocked by a mountain of plowed snow. I swear I heard someone singing about the hills being alive, the plowed mountain is that big.

I have no shovel and no snow blower. I had a plow guy who borrowed my shovel a couple of years ago, the last time he plowed for me. He just never came back, never called. He still has my shovel.

My muse has left for sunnier climes. One of my students posted a comment that Bolga is hot, hot, hot (her words). She wants snow. I want hot. Too bad we can’t trade at least for a little while.

Because the snow has me housebound, I am left me yet again to my own devices. I could clean (oh, the horror), read or watch movies, but that is what I have been doing for the last few days. I need diversions. Maybe I’ll just join the dogs on the couch if they’ll let me.

I have not been baiting the mouse hotels for the last couple of days. I don’t want to catch any. I can’t relocate them with the snow covering everything, and I won’t dispatch them to their heavenly rewards. They get a couple of free days.

In January 1969, on a Sunday, I got a special delivery letter congratulating me on being selected for the Peace Corps. I would be going to Ghana. I had to look in an atlas to pinpoint where Ghana is in Africa. I knew nothing about it. The pages I found told me imports and exports, major crops, currency, topography, social hierarchy, climate and major cities. Ghana was reduced to a couple of geography classes. At staging, before we left, I saw slides of Ghana. I was still caught in the pages of a geography book. To complete the scene, I just needed a nun in front reminding us to pay attention and be quiet.

I have found an old black and white science fiction movie from 1951, Lost Continent. Right now they have just climbed an obviously fake mountain to the top looking for their wayward rocket. They lost one man on the climb. I guess I’ll keep a head count. At the top of the mountain is a strange world. Everything is green, even the dinosaurs.

This entry was posted on January 26, 2026 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.