Its a Gas Gas Gas

All night, there is stillness and cold. There is no sound of insects. I hear occasional cars passing, nearby or far away, and I hear the sound of leaves letting go of their twigs and falling, and I hear the intermittent rumble of the furnace, but everything else is silent. There is not even an owl hooting, nor any dog barking. I miss the crickets.

When I go indoors, the heating soon makes me dopey. I have the feeling that I'm inhaling vast amounts of carbon monoxide. The furnace was serviced a few months ago, but my sluggish brain tells me that the heated air still isn't good for me. The cat apparently doesn't get the same message. She has been sleeping in her favorite winter night spot, directly atop one of the living room vents. Kitties.

Living with the enervating effect of the furnace is one of the bad things about the early onset of cold weather. And I guess the bad thing about having a computer that isn't hypersensitive to heat is that I now leave the vent open most of these cold nights, so I can remain comfortably warm. That, of course, was also one of the good things about getting the new computer. Sluggo's hatred of even the slightest warmth forced me to remain miserable, but clear-headed, last winter. Inside every silver lining, there's a big, dark cloud. Wait- I like big, dark clouds. Oh, never mind.

OK, I'm hitting all the wrong keys now. That's not good on a computer. Time to go out and breathe again. Hey, there's the sound of that bird (or giant insect) hitting the window! Dawn approaches!

Not Wet

The trash guy isn't going to like me this week. I've thrown away a bunch of stuff that is heavy and he'll have to heft a hernia-inducing bin. Maybe I'll be nice and divide it between two bins, keeping the other half till next week. On the other hand, two weeks ago he decided to come about three hours earlier than usual, with no advanced notice of the schedule change, so he went by before I'd had the chance to get the bin out to the street. This is my opportunity for passive-aggressive revenge.

I got barely a glimpse at the crescent moon tonight. The clouds had regathered by the time I woke, so I got one of those steely gray autumn afternoons when the color of the leaves is deepened and muted by dimness. Only a brief thinning of the western vapors revealed the moon for a few minutes before it settled among the pines. There isn't supposed to be rain tonight, but I'm not so sure that those clouds will be able to resist dumping their burden. If they do, it probably won't be a very cold rain. The air is cool tonight, but milder than on recent nights.

Some weather folk are speculating that conditions are right this year for the phenomenon which goes by the name Pineapple Express. This results when the failure of the normal high pressure zone over the southwest U.S. causes the jet stream dip south across the Pacific from Alaska and pick up much moisture from the area around Hawaii, then bring it hither to dump. Typically, it leads to almost constant rain for up to two weeks at a time, followed by long dry periods of up to two months. This pattern could repeat through next spring. It would mean a very wet winter, with more rain than snow due to the tropical source of the moisture.

In the worst case, prolonged heavy rains could lead to levee breaches and over-topped dams, resulting in widespread flooding. Now that New Orleans is largely depopulated, Sacramento contains the largest concentration of population vulnerable to severe floods anywhere in the United States. I don't think Arnold could help by sticking his muscles in the dike, either.

Potential for massive disaster aside, the most annoying thing is that, while the rainy periods are filled with warm, wet Hawaiian air, the periods between storms are filled with cold, dry Alaskan air, due to the absence of the normal high pressure zone. Drat. The gas bills! I'm not looking forward to weeks on end of icy chill.

Oh, and my head is itching because the stores around here no longer carry my favorite shampoo, and I've had to resort to a substitute to which I apparently have some allergy. I may be forced to begin ordering shampoo over teh Internets, as the stuff I like is still available in Canada. The shipping charges would be nasty, though.