“Remoted” Day 264 (Saturday)

The morning began, not with the peaceful, muffled quiet of snowfall, but with the sound of pelting rain. Instead of waking to a Winter Wonderland, it was a few steps closer to Waterworld. The usual large puddle had formed at the road edge of the shared driveway at one side of the house and carried halfway up the drive to the house. The usual larger puddle was formed across the street. At the edge of the shared driveway on the other side of my house, water was pooling and swirling around the storm drain. Outside the house was noisy with rain. Inside the house was dark as a cave. It was depressing.

There was an early spark of joy upon reading an email with the glad tidings that the Hannaford near me now carries beer and wine. The beer and wine section was my favorite reason for grocery shopping at Hannaford while staying in Fitchburg, and it was a disappointment the first time I visited the Dracut store and learned this was not a standard store feature. The sad realization was only mildly tempered by the availability of Tri-Sum Chips. But now there are two reasons to go the extra distance to Hannaford.

Around 1:00, after hours of rain, the precipitation changed to snow. There were small flakes mixed with big flakes that looked like torn paper. By then, I had been fighting with the Walgreen’s website for photo prints for what felt like forever. There were issues with half the prints I wanted because of the way I cropped the photos before I uploaded them and they had to all be redone. Then there were issues at checkout, because the order was set up as a “ship to me” but after seeing how long it would take (weeks?!?), I wanted to change it to "pick up in store." There was no easy option for that. There was no option at all for that. The solution was to cancel the order through a tedious process of removing each item one by one until they were all gone, then starting over. If I didn’t really want the stupid prints I would have said screw it after the first half hour of the cropping issues.  

Finally, at 4:00, the stupid order was completed. There were a few breaks in there to eat, let the dogs out, swear, close out of the program, shop for frames on Amazon for the same project, but yes, it took a massive chunk of the day to order a few different prints in various sizes. If the finished project doesn't come out as imagined, I will be, as Dad would say, "ripshit."

By the time the photo ordeal was finished, it was dark outside so there was no frolicking in the snow for me. There was also no snuggling on the couch with a movie on TV for the afternoon, it was all muttering and swearing on the couch with a laptop. All afternoon long and into this evening, the weather note on my phone has said it would snow "for 120 minutes." 

There was a bit of shoveling done to clear the couple inches of slop from the front stairs for the pups to potty and for the pizza delivery I planned to order online. The snow on the ground was the wet, heavy heart attack snow and the stuff still falling from the sky was loud and crispy when it hit my coat. 

Upon returning to the laptop a little after 6:00 to place the online pizza order, it was discovered that the pizza shop was already closed. The website didn’t say why, but I’ve decided it’s probably due to the same weather that will keep me from going out to pick up the photo prints that are supposed to be ready around 8:30. The freezer is packed with stuff, so it was pot stickers with soy sauce, sesame oil, and fresh ginger for the win. It is a far cry from extra cheese pizza, but according to the pizza shop website, there is always tomorrow for that.