The News from South Philly

It's blue sky all the way to the horizon, and still in the 70s at noon. I find I have a new spring in my step and am actually able to walk up and down stairs instead of hauling myself by the handrail (or letting myself down easy, hanging onto the handrail). The new exercise regimen or the weather, I don't know which.

A perfect day to ride up to Temple University to retrieve the glasses that a colleague absent-mindedly picked up and put in his pocket, thinking they were his reading glasses.

It's also a perfect day to pick up a bushel of tomatoes at the farmer's market, if Mr. Beiler found some for me at the right price point.

The Civil War folks have agreed that a quick tweak to a couple of pages will suffice, with a modest rebuild in Dreamweaver to follow and a switch to a CMS once we have a smidge of money to throw at a consultant. I am thinking about hiring someone to coach me through a Drupal install. Teach me to fish, and all...

We are having another Nor'easter, but because the temperature is well above freezing we are having rain. Our weather folk are wondering whether how bad the flooding will be if we get the threatened maximum of 5" of rain. I myself am imagining what 5" of rain would have looked like as snowfall and am very grateful that it's rain.

After this weekend we are promised a week of partly/mostly sunny with temps in the 50s and 60. A great week for yard work.

I have Real Work to do today as penance for having edited photos when I should have been tending to my Day Job last week. I am also six photos away from my 10,000th upload to Flickr and am thinking it should be something special. Dodo's Nopalxochia, perhaps, or mine, or some other really spectacular shot from the Flower Show. If I stuck with the ones in sequence, it would be a perfectly fine but not spectacular Haworthia. That's not fair -- it's probably spectacular to Haworthia enthusiasts. Thought must be given.

Despite the warmer temps outside, the Nor'easter has made it chilly in my office -- right now it's 56F. So I'm bundled up just like in the depths of winter as the damp wind howls outside. We're having some leakage problems. This rain is overwhelming our gutters' ability to cope.

EDIT: Later I'll want to remember, so it's good to write this stuff down. Last night I potted up four rooted cuttings of basil 'pesto perpetuo' in 3 oz plastic cups. The day before yesterday (which would be March 11) I potted up six rooted coleus cuttings in one 6" pot -- three of 'the flume' and three of a fantasy-leaved variety that I believe is 'burning bush.' I also took four cuttings of the rather leggy purple tradescantia and took the marjoram seedlings downstairs to put them under lights. I've been peeking at the impatiens impatiently, but realized today that they were sown less than a week ago. How time flies.

Up at 6:00. Dressed, groomed and partially caffeinated by 6:20. On a day that the roads are dry and I can bike, that will be good enough. For days on the bus I need to be out the door by 6:00 if I want any floor time before my tour.

They're threatening us with snow today/tomorrow, but not too much. Three inches, they're saying, maybe less. *Yawn.* The snow isn't supposed to start till late this afternoon, so I should be able to fit in the other part of the training -- time on my feet -- before the white stuff starts to fall.

UPDATE: I bought a bus pass, too the 17 bus to 5th and Market, and walked home in a very leisurely fashion, taking pictures as I went. It took me almost 2 hours to do a little under three miles including my various detours off the straight path, but there were a lot of stops. And the last mile went *very* slowly because my knees were complaining.

Now I'm home and waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in, drinking coffee and watching the lazy snowflakes flutter from a leaden sky.

Our 5-6 inches devolved into a giant pile of slush when it ended in mixed rain and sleet. Roy shoveled that mess off our sidewalks in a fast hurry and laid down more salt. Act II is supposed to be the potentially wallopping Nor'easter. Everything in Philadelphia is cancelled -- even the Union League is closed, except for the bar/cafe on limited hours.

I'm keeping the thermostat down (we've lowered our heating bills by about 35% this year) and keeping warm by thinking about the Flower Show. Oh, and working on my Day Job, of course...

The official total for the weekend's snowfall was 28.5 inches at Philadelphia International Airport.

I believe I see two more buds about to happen on the Nopalxochia, in addition to the three previously identified. Not exactly copious bloom, but I'll take what I can get.

Roy did all the shoveling yesterday, so I did all the cooking. We had bulgur-as-oatmeal plus eggs for breakfast; a homemade chicken soup with orzo and vegetables for lunch; and pork, red beans, and rice for dinner. The pork came from the Asian supermarket -- ground pork at $.99 lb. I cooked up all 2 pounds of it, as well as the five little green peppers, one huge onion, and half a bunch of celery. I divided the meat and Holy Trinity into three portions, froze two, and used the third for dinner last night. We'll get a dinner and a lunch out of it -- pretty good stretching of 9-10 oz of cooked pork.

Next time I want to have beans and rice it's going to be an easy fix. Defrost the stuff, make the roux, combine ingredients, season, and pop in the oven.

Average snowfall in Philadelphia, each winter: 19 inches
Snowfall yesterday: 23 inches

Well, that would explain why we are overwhelmed.

It's so much quieter in the city when it's snowing, I guess because there are fewer vehicles on the road, or because the snow muffles the sound so that it doesn't carry as far.

We're predicted to get anywhere between 10-20 inches. I already had bread and milk when I ventured out to buy that turkey yesterday afternoon, and I have five pounds of coffee, so I'm set.

Being as Roy is in Chattanooga, I can run the thermostat down, which I did: to 58F. The thermometer in my office reads 54, and I'm happy to be wearing a hat. Fleece shawl and laprobe are nice, and I've added a fleece bathrobe. What the heck -- there's no one here to see me.

Last night I watched Sherlock Holmes on my computer. This is nice. Perhaps I will bring my knitting upstairs.

Update: I can't find the snow shovel and Mr. lbphilly is out of town. So I did the first shoveling (very necessary in order to get de-icer down on the sidewalk to make later shoveling easier) with a coal scuttle that must weigh 20 pounds all by its lonesome. Add some heavy snow to it and oh brother.

The Scamp went out and came back in pretty quick before I shoveled. After I shoveled he conceived the notion that he could go hide under the bushes and ambush the sparrows as they fed on the ground under the feeder. Perhaps he though there would be no snow under the feeder... after about ten minutes he'd had enough and wailed like a banshee to be let back in.

I think more Sherlock Holmes on Netflix may be called for. Perhaps the Hound of the Baskervilles...

Here in Philadelphia the prevailing winds are out of the west and don't affect me much in my third-floor home office. But I have two good-sized windows in my 11 x 10 office -- one faces north and one faces east-northeast. When a nor'easter comes roaring down from wherever nor'easters come from, the wind moans and shakes the panes of the old windows in their sashes and bullies its way through the cracks.

This is the second nor'easter I've noticed since the weather cooled, and I am suspecting that this is a portent of a cold wet winter. The last one dropped three inches of rain, which would have been 30" of snow. I wonder how this one will be -- my informal rain gauge isn't out there.

I am glad to be indoors today, wearing several layers of clothing and a lap robe and eating hot soup for lunch. Tomorrow is supposed to be the rainiest and windiest day, though, and I must venture forth.

We had one hot spell early on (in May, I think), but it's been pretty reasonable this summer so far. I don't believe it's gone into the 90s more than once or twice. Yesterday, by mid-afternoon, it was 76 in the shade and low humidity. I kept the central air conditioner off and the windows and exhaust fans on. My little third floor office still gets pretty hot, which the machines don't like, so I kept the room air conditioner on.

This is very nice; I hope it keeps up.

It went down to the low 40s (F) last night. I hope my amaryllis come through all right. It would be a shame to have three years' worth of experiments brought to an abrupt halt by one cold night.

Yesterday I got out of bed and almost collapsed because of a searing pain in my right knee. I did manage to hobble to the places I needed to go, but it was very scary. The searing pain abated over the course of the day (and the consumption of many ibuprofen), but this morning it is very stiff and a bit swollen.

The sharp pain is low and on the inside, with another muscular strain thing high and on the outside.

Interestingly, I was able to ride my bike -- about five miles, total, to go to my various errands -- with only minimal discomfort. Then I had to hobble from my bike inside to my meetings. I contemplated the possible surreality of biking here and there and then using a cane to get around on foot.

This is the worst episode of knee misbehavior that I have ever had.