Scenes from Winter

This big fellow is an Elks memorial at Winnikinni Castle. He looks like he has something to say about winter, doesn't he?

Today my bliss of the past snowy days came to abrupt end. I had an early morning thyroid ultrasound and biopsy (not to worry, I've had this thing for years, and the deal is if I submit to this particular form of torture once a year, and no malignancy is found I get to keep my thyroid - which I prefer to a lifetime of synthroid) and hit incredible traffic. Once or twice a year, something -usually a horrific accident on 93 - backs up 495 and 93 at the same time and then the surface roads as desperate commuters get onto the secondary routes. Today was one of those days. I took over an hour to make a 15 minute trip and that was on the back roads. I would probably still be on the highway. Then to add insult to injury or rather injury to insult - when I got back to the house, I took a header on the ice at the top of the driveway and boogered my neck and shoulder. It hurts. Muscle pull or sprain or something. Back to cursing winter and the driveway.

But I redeemed my day somewhat when went out to dinner with James and Jon before James heads back to LA. Great little southeast Asian place in Lowell. Short on ambience and very, very, very short on waiter compentence but the food was magnificent. It's always nice having James here and I'll be as sorry as anyone to see him go. Steve and I are making noise about paying him a visit in February if travel isn't prohibitive. Although from his tales of Hades aka the airport and flight delays, I'm having a second thought or two.