ndrosen | Entries tagged with weather

Waiting for a bus Thursday morning, with cold rain pouring down, I said to someone else who was waiting, “This is lovely weather for ducks, well-insulated ducks.”

“But not for us,” she replied.

Later in the day, after more rain, we got snow, and then the skies cleared. On my way home after nine PM, it was definitely cold, and I was wearing a raincoat, not my heavy winter coat. Well, I arrived home in one piece.

In a previous post, I wrote about having to walk home last Thursday. On Thursday the 5th, I had a rather different experience: Once again, I was at the bus stop with two other men, when a crowded A40 bus came by. I was carrying both my work laptop, in a special bag with various papers and whatnot, and a bag of groceries from the Whole Foods near the Patent Office. Once again, it was cold, and there were snow and ice on the ground.

This time, the bus driver stopped, and the passengers on the crowded bus squeezed and readjusted their positions, managing to make room for the three of us; we were left standing near the rear door, but we did succeed in riding the bus. I arrived safely a couple of blocks from my apartment.

Thursday evening, I was coming home from the Patent Office, wearing a backpack, and carrying a bag with my laptop and various papers therein. At the Pentagon City station, where I got off, an A40 bus was supposed to come by in nine minutes (according to the display in an electronic sign). A woman told me that it had been supposed to arrive in two minutes, but then that announcement had disappeared. I decided to walk to a bus stop about a third of a mile away, where I might catch an A40 bus or the F-something bus.

I waited a bit, and two other men joined me. We waited, and an A40 bus came by, but didn’t stop; it was very crowded, and did not seem to be taking new passengers. I said that I had had enough, and would walk home. It was over a mile, and the going was rough, as there were patches of cleared sidewalk, patches of snowy sidewalk with an icy crust on the snow, hillocks of snow to claim, and so forth. The temperature was below freezing, and there was wind. I walked and walked, and a few blocks before the sidestreet to my apartment building, I saw two buses come by, an A40 and an F-something.

I finished the walk, and got home after ten o’clock. I wasn’t comfortable, but I think it was just as well that I did walk home, since I was doing something to achieve my goal, instead of standing there stewing, while the possible future arrival of a bus was outside my control.

The Chosin Few would not have been impressed by my endurance.

There was a little snow or wintry mix on the morning of Christmas Eve, but it’s been quite a while since we had a major snowstorm in the DC area. We have had one today. I put on boots, and took an evening walk in the snow. It was beautiful, especially where there were colored lights, but snow was still falling, and a sharp wind was blowing intermittently. The Chosin Few might have considered it a delightful break from really cold weather, but I figured that I was working on my fortitude by continuing the walk. This reminds me of my childhood in Pennsylvania, or attending college in Western Massachusetts.

The federal government in the DC area was closed today, but I was teleworking anyhow. I had an appointment to go see an optometrist this afternoon (the receptionist told me that I should come in when I reported my eye floater Friday), but I received notice by email that the office was closed because of the inclement weather, and then someone called to reschedule the appointment to Thursday.

We have been having some very hot weather lately; the farmers’ market Sunday morning was scheduled to close early before things got really hot. I exchanged a few words with one vendor, commenting that there are still people who claim that global warming is a hoax.

Saturday, I felt under the weather, which may literally have had something to do with the heat, or not. I didn’t eat anything after breakfast, nor want to, and I kept repeatedly dozing off. I feel better today.

The paper said that the temperature today would rise to 61 degrees Fahrenheit, but I think it was warmer than that. Earlier, I was outside wearing a short-sleeved shirt (my “Don’t Blame Me: I Voted for Gary Johnson” shirt, referencing the 2016 election), and I was quite comfortable.

On Thursday, it rained and rained all day. Looking out my office window, it seemed to be night, even when the sun wasn’t down yet. In the evening, wearing a coat and carrying an umbrella, I walked from a Metro station to a bus stop, thinking that it was raining quite enough, but then, while I was waiting at the bus stop, the rain started coming down even harder.

Friday was cold, especially later in the day. By quitting time, we had a hard frost with a wind that bit, and the puddles from the previous day’s rain were solid ice. More cold weather today, but without any fluffy snow coming down to give us a white Christmas.

Monday was rainy and cold; I got outside to run an errand in the morning, when it was only drizzling a little, but later the rain seemed to be coming down in buckets. I got some of my afternoon exercise pacing the corridors inside the apartment building; after the rain had subsided, I made a brief evening excursion in my raincoat, carrying an umbrella. Rain was still coming down, and it was cold. I put an extra blanket on my bed before turning in.

I don’t have heat in my apartment, since they switched to AC some days ago, although there is warm air from the vents in the hallways. Today is another cold day, although at least it’s bright and clear.

Around noon, it was warm enough for me to take a walk without a coat, and with my shirtsleeves rolled up. Even late in the evening, it was warmer than a typical December day. I poured a glass of port to celebrate the near completion of an almost good first quarter; port is a dessert wine, but drinking it with chocolate chip cookies may be slightly unusual.

We will see, over the next thirty-eight or so hours, how successful the first quarter of the fiscal year turns out to be.

Thursday was warm enough to go outside in shirtsleeves comfortably, and was a bright day with clear blue skies and good light for viewing the multicolored foliage; the smell of Autumn was in the air. There are green leaves, bright yellow leaves, vivid red leaves, and also som drab leaves.

After some clouds and rain late Thursday, Friday was another bright, crisp day with blue sky, but much colder, demanding gloves and a winter coat. There were still leaves on the trees, providing a feast for the eyes.

I don’t keep my apartment very cool in summer, but the air conditioners were kept busy today; to the extent they were powered by burning fossil fuel, they were likely contributing to future hot days. When I went for a walk after nine in the evening, it was still quite hot, as well as being humid.

Saturday night, we got significant snowfall, not just a dusting, and then more snow on Sunday. Someone erected a snowman on the apartment complex’s lawn.

I have had a problem with the skin on my fingers cracking; I’ve been applying antibiotic ointment and bandages. On a friend’s recommendation, I bought some cotton gloves at CVS, and they help; I can put glop on my hands, and still be able to use my workstation without getting stuff in the keyboard, and write in my notebook without staining it. Also, my fingertips are not directly hitting the keys again and again. This was good advice.

Thursday was quite cold, with biting winds; when I went out for air and exercise, I wore a coat, hood, mask, and winter gloves, as well as long trousers, and I still felt the cold. When returning home from a short walk in the early afternoon, I found myself walking some distance behind a woman in a mid-calf length skirt, apparently of light material; gusts of wind kept lifting the skirt above the lady’s knees. I have to admire her toughness.

We had snow this morning, which turned into cold rain, plenty of cold rain, so I have mostly remained indoors today. On Sunday, it was warm enough for me to go out in a short-sleeved shirt and no coat. How things can change.

It’s a beautiful, sunny day. I have a window open, and I’m about to go shopping wearing a short-sleeved shirt and no coat.

There was a huge downpour Monday morning, which led to flooding in the DC area, and to buses being canceled, and Metro trains not running through the tunnels. However, by that time, I was safe in my fifth floor office at the USPTO, and mass transit was transiting again by the time I went home in the evening.

Saturday evening, as is my wont, I went to Alexandria to do some work at the Patent Office, and then go to Whole Foods to do some shopping and eat dinner, and then back to the Patent Office. It was snowing, and the Pentagon City Metro station was closed, although not because of the snow; they were conducting some repairs and improvements. This meant that Metro was running shuttle buses, so I took a bus from Pentagon City to Braddock Road, and then a train one stop from Braddock Road to King Street.

Coming back, I took a train two stops from King Street to National Airport, and then a shuttle bus to Pentagon City; it was around midnight when I arrived. Normally there would be cabs by the Metro stop, or at least a cab would be likely to come by soon, but with the weather and the trains not serving Pentagon City, there weren’t any cabs. I entered the Ritz-Carlton, planning to ask someone just what the address was (it’s 1250 South Hayes, if you want to know), and pull my cellphone out from a pocket in my backpack to call a cab. The hotel employees graciously called a cab for me, saying that the cab would come faster that way.

After waiting for twenty minutes in the cold outside the Ritz-Carlton, while holding a bag of groceries, I went inside, and the gentleman at the front desk called again, and said that a cab might be there in fifteen minutes; there was evidently extra demand because of the weather. I told him to cancel the request, and started walking home, carrying my bag of groceries. It was after 1:00 PM when I arrived. I did get some healthful exercise, and there was beauty in the snow, but I wish I had started walking twenty minutes earlier.

We’ve had hot days and warm nights, and we’ve had rainstorms, but now we’ve had some cooler weather. I walked home from the Metro station this evening, and it was almost like one of the cooler summer evenings I remember from my boyhood in a town at a somewhat higher latitude and altitude than the DC area. Lovely.

This evening, I stopped at a book store, and then waited ten or fifteen minutes for the bus that would take me the rest of the way to Pentagon City. It was bitterly cold, Pennsylvania hills cold or even Massachusetts cold, instead of the moderate cold of a typical winter day in Northern Virginia.

Also, I mostly wore my coat, or half-wore it, at work today. Not all of the Patent Office was cold, but my office was. I'm senior enough to have a window, and I think that area of the building in particular was underheated.