An Ides of December Porpourri

Waiting for some snow

 

It is mid-month of trying to post on this blog everyday this month.  It is time for another potpourri. 

Cold Weather:  It is good to have some cold weather.  We are in the upper 20s and 30s all week.  We may actually get some snow.  It is not the kind of really cold snap I like to see.  But, it is the kind of temperatures we should be having in the middle of December, the kinds of temperatures I remember when I was a kid.  It was rare not to have a White Christmas growing-up.  Lately, it has become rarer to have one. 

I hope we get a snow storm.  Our house is decked out and ready to glisten and glow under a blanketing of  good old fashioned Christmas snow.

A lot of my friends don’t like winter, even the mild variety we have been experiencing.  They complain about it.  Not me, I want a few blizzards that cancel everything.  Such storms have me marveling at the beauty of fresh fallen and drifting snow that covers everything in a pure white blanket.  It is good to venture out, bundled up, on foot and especially if no one else is out.   

I also don't think it is really Winter unless we have at least one below zero cold spell. You know the kind where the weathermen are saying it is -6 but it feels like -97 and if you are foolish enough to venture outside any exposed skin will freeze.  The frigid quiet is peaceful and calming.

A good winter does my soul good.

Thankful for FaceTime:  With the Pandemic, we have not been able to visit our children and grandchildren who live at opposite ends of the country in DC and LA.  Others I know have gotten on airplanes and driven to see their families.  In all three households, we take the protocols seriously.  Hence, no travel and a lot of FaceTime.

Today, I was speaking with both sets of grandchildren for most of the afternoon.  Sure, I had other things I was supposed to be attending to.  Yet, when any grandkid calls, I drop what I am doing if I am able.  It is one of the great pandemic pleasures to speak with these engaging and charming little ones. 

When I was younger, we lived in Detroit and my paternal grandmother, Agnes, lived in Watertown, MA.  There wasn’t anything close to FaceTime.  We did have the telephone, the old rotary dial landline house phone, with what they called a party line (google it the concept is foreign to you).  We didn’t just pick-up the phone and call her whenever we wanted.  It was long-distance and that was big thing back then because it was ridiculously expensive.  A short ten to fifteen-minute call cost like $3 or $4 if my recollection serves me well (a Google search was useless here) which is equivalent to $23 or $28 today.  Needless to say, the calls were infrequent and shorter in duration.

Thank goodness for FaceTime and WiFi!

Michigan Football:  Michigan was supposed to play Iowa on Saturday evening December 18^th.  Today, that game was cancelled because of the ongoing Covid outbreak on the Michigan team.  Apparently fifty players will not be able to play.  This is the third game in a row that has been cancelled for this reason.  Michigan’s record is a dismal 2 – 4 and they did not win a game at home.  Unbelieveable.  The four losses… they were really painful to watch.  I loved the two wins, however.  They exciting games to watch.

Head Coach, Jim Harbaugh, has a year left on his very lucrative contract.  There are all kinds of rumors and theories about his future.  Will he return to the NFL?  If so, who would take his place.  The rumor with the most credibility claims that his contract will be extended at a lower pay rate but with higher incentives.

I hope he stays and turns it around.  I think a coaching change would set us back. 

A Piece of Good Writing... From a Car Review?:  Sure, I am reading Saroyan.  I have another book I have queued up to read by Nikolai Gogol. These are great writers to be sure.

Not all great writing are from the masters.  This past Saturday, I read a car review in the Wall Street Journal by Dan Neill.  He pens a column called the Rumble Sheet.  This review was about the 2021 Genesis G80.  The review of the car was Neill’s normal good job.  This week I loved the fresh and candid style of the preamble to his review which I share here.

MUCH OF THE reader mail this column receives, thank you, is phrased in the form of a question: Which car should I buy? This question gets harder every year. Lately, many of my correspondents want to know which three-ton super-SUV behemoth I would recommend? Um, none. It’s my duty to observe that the supersizing of the U.S. private fleet represents a public health threat and a failure of regulatory and tax policy (I’m looking at you, Section 179 of the IRS Code). On average and at the extreme, SUVs and trucks have gotten too big, too wasteful and there are too many on the road. Don’t buy one.

 

See? Sort of sucks the air out of the room.

 

Another bloc asks my preference among traditional four-door sedans—midsize plus, premium-luxury category, rear or all-wheel drive, $50,000 to $75,000. If these readers are able to charge at home, I advise them to immediately Pass Go, buy a Tesla, and join the 21st century. Otherwise, the usual suspects include BMW 5 Series, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Lexus GS, Cadillac CT5 and Audi A6.