Of course the wind had to be back at it again today, and now coming from the south which is why we’re supposed to be well-above freezing tomorrow. While on the phone with a colleague this morning, I insisted that over all these long years of living in North Iowa, I can’t remember a winter having so many windy days. I’m sure it all has to do with the warming of our Arctic and the melting of its permafrost. You can call it climate change, global warming, or whatever you like, but at the end of the day, we’re seeing more changes in our weather as each year passes.
Part of my morning was spent helping a client get rid of some upholstered furniture which ended up going to someone in need of a few basics, so I placed a call, and about an hour later, there was a sofa and an upholstered chair with ottoman getting loaded onto a pickup truck and delivered to a residence. I’m glad the taker was exceptionally thankful to my client for getting them because those pieces were well built and taken care of better than what you’d find at a used furniture outlet. While there, I couldn’t help adding, “I’ve never purchased used upholstered furniture unless I knew exactly where it came from.”, which is a good standard to have due to the number of issues our City’s having with bedbugs.
When I arrived back at office, I noticed another counter-offer on 201 S. Vermont in my email, so I called my sellers and went over it with them, but unfortunately they’re digging their heels in on the last price they counter-offered at, so I then notified the selling agent. Not too long afterwards, I received a note from the agent saying the buyer was going to wait for something else to come on the market. I do wish that buyer luck because it’s looking like there will be slim pickings come Spring if our inventories don’t get replenished.
The remainder of my day was spent catching up on the news feeds and putzing around at office before I headed out to work on my little/big project for several hours. I’d been side-tracked with other more pressing matters this past month, which caused me to put that one on the back burner. It was good to be back over there again, and if I have time tomorrow, I’ll be over there working.
When knowing I have to play over at St. Paul Lutheran tomorrow, I sat down for about twenty minutes at my office piano and went thru all the music I was assigned. One of them is a little tricky, so I spent a more time on it because I definitely don’t want to be stumbling when trying to find which page I have to jump to. Some of our more modern church music tends to be a little more embellished with key changes and separate melodies added to a verse or two which makes for more pages to jump around on. Not to worry, I think I’ve got it down pat.
Tonight’s photo is the top section of a page from the Globe Gazette dated February 28, 1936 which was covering the stories of the horrific blizzard that had taken place in and around that time. I thought its title “Pictures of Worst North Iowa Winter for 116 years.” was a bit odd. Ok, now when doing the math, that means that in 1820 they had a similar winter, but not making the least bit of sense because North Iowa wasn’t even getting settled by the whites until the 1850’s, and sparsely at that.
Now if you’d go over to Dubuque which is the oldest City in Iowa, that hamlet didn’t get much of a start until the 1830’s. I’m sure whomever came up with that 116 years must’ve been getting some sketchy and questionable information from unreliable sources. I guess if you put aside the 116 years and look at some of those photos, you’ll begin to see what a nightmare it must’ve been for those farmers and city folk. It’s no wonder my mother used to mention a time or two how horrible that snow storm was, along with the aftermath of very muddy roads and fields when Spring did arrive. I’m sure there was some serious flooding that year if all that snow melted quickly. Can you imagine what it would be like if such a snow storm would hit again this month?
While reading the news, I happened upon a very good article written by a woman who’s been following Putin for a number of years, and what I liked the most about it, was the way in which she identified his pattern of creating discord and then stepping in to “help” those in need. Well, that help wasn’t help at all, but nothing more than a way to incorporate more territories into his dictatorial fold. He did it with an area of Romania, a part of the Country of Georgia, and finally, the seizing of Crimea and the setting up of puppet regimes in Eastern Ukraine.
Keeping in mind, that little guy is almost 70 years old, and still bent on restoring the old Soviet Union with its satellite countries. How insane is that? I’m sure most who’re still in possession of their gray matter, would shake their heads saying, “He’s definitely got a few screws loose.”
What I mentioned earlier today, was the fact that back when kings would invade other sovereign territories, they’d be the ones leading the charge, but not it today’s world because such war mongers are seated in their palaces and watching it all happen on a big screen. Can you imagine how fast he’d turn his horse around and run if he had to be the one leading his soldiers? We both agreed that if he does invade Ukraine, we’re going to be seeing some overnight changes all over our world, but if we have to make sacrifices to keep democracy alive in the world, then so be it.
Let’s hope and pray none of the European Nations “blink” first, which will hopefully force Putin to back down and crawl back into his convoluted mental hole and go home.
Tonight’s One-liner is: Fear is a static which prevents us from hearing ourselves think.
