Roads are wet in the Crestline area but the fact that I had to de-ice my windshield before take-off suggests that temps are cold enough to create ice on the roads. Well, ambient ground temps at my elevation seem to have prevented that from happening in Crestline, but I’m going to bet that at slightly higher elevations there’s a great chance of ice on the road.
Oddly, while I saw nothing but clear skies and stars from my launch pad in Crestline, once I got down into the flat parts of Rialto and Rancho Kook, there were windshield wipers slappin’ out a tempo, keepin’ perfect rhythm with the song on the ra-A-a-dio-o… It’s pouring down pretty good here.
However, on the mountain, I saw no fog and no rocks. Again, no snow and no ice on my segment of the commute.
So, we are currently in the middle of a mass migration, one in which a BILLION undocumented immigrants are crossing the border from Mexico. That might sound like an exaggerated conspiracy claim but these things are simply flying over the border and nobody is stopping them. Yesterday, I even watched, with my very own eyeballs, as hundreds of them fluttered by on their pilgrimage to Oregon. I guess the Painted Lady butterfly does this every year but this year has provided a bump in their numbers. I don’t think it will darken the skies or create visibility issues but a billion butterflies is a lot… like a thousand million, or even maybe eleventy kajillion or so.
I mentioned yesterday that today’s column would cover why we don’t get Easter this year, at least not in March. Now, contrary to what some think, Easter is NOT the day when Jesus emerges from his tomb to look for his shadow and determine whether or not we have six more weeks of winter. That’s another thing. Incidentally, I read recently that Punxsatawney “Punk” Phil has been indicted in the state of Ohio, for “deliberately misleading the public” when, on February 2, he suggested that an early spring was imminent. He’s been charged with a felony. The death penalty has been called for… but it’s been suggested that a judge would chuck these charges out.
But, back to the Easter thing: man, nailing down the day of Easter is an exercise in hitting a moving target. Geez… Thanksgiving is bad enough: it hardly ever falls on November 25, but sometimes it does. And other holidays get moved to Monday a lot, in order to promote more Sunday night drinking, which I approve of. But Easter is the worst: see, it falls on the first Sunday following the ecclesiastical full moon after March 21… so, sometimes it’s as early as March 22, but sometimes, it doesn’t fall until April 25. Oh, dang it, that’s for those who celebrate WESTERN Christianity. It seems that EASTERN Christians have a different thing going on, so Easter falls From April 4 to May freakin’ 8… that’s the Gregorian calendar, however enCHANTing and whatever that means. I’m not sure how all of this was calculated, because as far as I know, Jesus only rose from the tomb one time. I also have no idea how pink bunnies and yellow chicks made of marshmallow came to signify the day that we hide blue eggs and give kids baskets full of green plastic hair and tooth decay enablers but… this is how it is. I guess we should be glad that we are not dressing up like Kim Kardashian and Captain Underpants on Easter… but giant bunny suits adorned with teeth the size of a TV screen are likely to be seen. But not Eddie Rabbit, drivin’ his life away. That’s another thing entirely. See windshield wiper reference in a previous paragraph.
Well, late April—the 21st, to be exact—will bring us Easter. I guess we’ll have to be patient in waiting for our Peeps and our Jelly Bellies and our choco-bunnies.
Take heart today, though… even though it’s Wednesday the 13th (is that bad luck?), in a few hours, you will have knocked out one-half of the work-week’s hours. It’s all downhill from there. Or is it uphill? Whatever is better, I guess. Maybe these are the “golden hours” of the week. The final stretch. The countdown. I don’t know. Never mind. Note to self: Strike this paragraph before publication… it’s pretty lame.